Redstone Nightmares (Old)
by ThePlayaJam765
Summary: It's quite a funny thing, the Butterfly Effect, if you think about it. Basically, it means that one minor change can alter history in almost every single way possible. When, in a twist of fate, Xara turns against Fred and kills him, going down a path that Romeo almost found himself drifting towards, he realizes the reality of what he had been trying to do. (OLD VERSION)
1. Prologue

Prologue

* * *

So, I was browsing through tumblr a few weeks ago, and I saw some role reversal images of Romeo and Xara, and I immediately got an idea to do this. Not only that, but I also took some AU ideas of mine that never saw the light of day and decided to integrate them into the story somehow. And the result, is a story I call 'Redstone Nightmares'. The reason why I chose this name will be clear later on in the story. This story will contain minor swearing, mainly from Romeo.

(Profile Picture rendered by me in Cinema 4D)

* * *

(Minecraft: Story Mode and its characters belong to Telltale Games, not me.)

* * *

Romeo was not having a good week.

Fred and Xara were just as distant as ever, and Romeo wasn't having any luck in finding any suitable candidates to be his champion. Damn it, why did this have to be so hard?

Not only that, but tensions were starting to rise between Romeo and Fred. Fred didn't seem to agree with his challenge in Romeoburg, but what Romeo hadn't told them was that he originally built the challenge for the three of them, but it was eventually repurposed into a test to see who was worthy of becoming his champion.

Romeo heard the door open, and a familiar blue figure walked in. Great, the last thing he needed right now, another argument with Fred.

"Romeo." Fred said, getting the Admin in question's attention.

"What do you want?" Romeo deadpanned.

"Listen, Romeo. This recent attitude of yours, it's gotta stop." Fred reasoned. "I'm really starting to worry here."

"Oh, are you now?" Romeo answered rudely in the same tone.

"Yes. All this arguing. Don't think I haven't noticed what's going on in Romeoburg. That challenge you created, it's nothing but a death trap. Nobody's been able to get out of it alive. What is going on with it? What's your problem?"

"What's going on? WHAT'S GOING ON?!" Romeo's voice raised in volume as he finally turned around to look at Fred. "I'll tell you what's going on! I'm trying to find a worthy candidate to become my champion!"

Romeo turned away again.

"Nothing you'd ever understand of course." Romeo bitterly stated.

"What are you talking about?" Fred asked. He had not heard any footsteps from outside the door, which was starting to alarm him.

"You never did get it, didn't you, Fred?!" Romeo snapped. "I'm trying to find a promising friend here. One that will always stick by me no matter what!"

"What do you mean? We're still your friends!" Fred protested.

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that." Romeo retorted. He sighed.

"Ever since you and Xara ran off to create your own towns, you've never had time to hang out with me anymore. I'm just trying to keep us together for old time's sake, but when I show up day after day after day and just hearing 'Sorry, I've got a meeting to go to!' or 'Oh, I'm sorry! I'm busy looking after my town!'. It gets really tiring and tedious. That's why I'm trying to look for a champion. Someone who actually understands how to be a true friend!" Romeo ranted.

"Well. I'm sorry. I really am. But you should have said something sooner, we had no idea that you felt this way." Fred reasoned.

"You know what? Maybe you should have continued to schedule adventures with your friends, instead of just abandoning that life entirely in favour of running a community." Romeo said quietly, tears threatening to fall.

"Well. I'm sorry. I really am. But you should have said something sooner, we had no idea that you felt this way." Fred reasoned.

"You know what? Maybe you should have continued to schedule adventures with your friends, instead of just abandoning that life entirely in favour of running a community." Romeo said quietly, tears threatening to fall. He gasped, as if he realized something, before turning to glare at Fred.

"You've been playing me the whole time, both of you." Romeo said, accusingly. "You never cared for me at all! You just invited me along so that you could use me to benefit yourself."

"What gave you that-" Fred started.

"I get what's going on here. Find a guy to pretend to be friends with. Invite him along on some stupid adventures just to make him thing that we are bonding." Romeo seemed to glow in anger.

"BUT THE PART THAT REALLY MAKES ME MAD?! WHEN YOU, KNOWING FULL WELL THAT I HAVE NO EXPERIENCE OF BEING AN ADMIN, DECIDE TO RUN OFF TOGETHER AND DESERT ME! JUST WHEN I NEEDED YOU THE MOST!" Romeo shouted.

"How can you say that?" Fred protested.

"I BET YOU NEVER WANTED ME TO BE AN ADMIN IN THE FIRST PLACE! I BET YOU WERE PLANNING TO FIND THAT ADMIN GAUNTLET YOURSELF AND STAB ME IN THE BACK ONCE YOU AND XARA FOUND IT!" Romeo almost screamed.

Before Romeo could rant anymore, the door opened again, and Xara stepped in this time, holding a glowing Golden Gauntlet. Romeo was about to retort, but the look on her face stopped him and made him feel wary. It was a face, of sadistic pleasure.

"Hey, boys." She greeted, in a tone that sent a shiver down Romeo's spine. He never heard her speak like that before, and to be honest, it was scaring him a little bit.

"Xara, I told you to wait!" Fred growled.

"'I told you to wait!'" Xara mocked, before letting out a high-pitched shrill of sadistic laughter. Hold on a moment, this wasn't the Xara that Romeo knew. Was he missing something here?

Romeo looked into Fred's eyes, and he could tell that Fred understood the situation no better than he did.

"Xara, you're scaring me!" Fred said. "What is your problem?"

Xara slowly stepped towards Fred, who slowly took a step back.

"Now it's been fun! Really, it has." Xara continued. "But this is the part where the adventure ends, for both of you!"

Xara raised the gauntlet, and slowly approached Fred. Fred's face showed a mixture of shock and anger.

"Xara, don't do this!" Fred warned.

Xara responded with another round of her high-pitched laughter.

"Can somebody tell me what's going on?" Romeo asked.

Xara raised the hand with the gauntlet on it, and Fred immediately rose into the air. He began to flash red.

"Xara, what you doing!?" Romeo exclaimed.

"R-Romeo! S-STOP H-HER-" Fred instructed while struggling to breath, before he disappeared in a poof of white smoke, inventory spilling to the ground. Romeo gave a gasp of horror. Xara had just killed Fred.

"Goodbye, Freddy!" Xara said, before bursting into high-pitched laughter again. She turned to Romeo, who started backing away slowly.

"Y-You, you just-" Romeo stammered, at a loss for words.

"Don't mourn him, you will be joining him soon." Xara sneered.

"Fuck that!" Romeo yelled before disappearing into purple particles.

* * *

Romeo immediately re-appeared inside their old cabin, and began to rummage around for his notes regarding the removal of Admin Powers. He needed to take Xara's powers away pronto, or else who knows what she might do next.

After a few minutes, Romeo growled in frustration, and simply used his powers to summon the book. It immediately appeared out of white smoke in his hand.

Romeo sat down on his old bed, and tears immediately began to fall. Just a few minutes ago, Romeo was accusing Fred and Xara of betrayal, and it scared him as he realized just how simultaneously right and wrong Romeo was. He was wrong about Fred, but right about Xara.

Romeo raised his hand, and immediately a birch tree appeared outside the cabin, Romeo then spawned a sign, and wrote the following message onto it.

FOR FRED!

"Fred, o-old friend. I'm s-so sorry!" Romeo sobbed. "D-Don't w-worry. I-I'll find Xara, and a-avenge you!"

Now, to break the news. Romeo teleported to Fred's Keep. Immediately, a crowd began to crowd around him.

"Binta, where is she?" Romeo asked.

"Romeo, what brings you here?" Binta asked, stepping forward. "By the way, Fred was looking for you earlier."

"Yeah, about that." Romeo said. "Fred, is dead."

A collection of gasps followed.

"N-No way! How can he be dead? He's an Admin." Binta protested. "I thought they were meant to be invincible!"

"Not from each other!" Romeo corrected. "Turns out Xara was not who we believed her to be."

"Xara?" Binta questioned. "The Admin Redstone Expert?"

"Yes, the very same." Romeo confirmed.

"If, if Xara killed Fred, who's stopping her from killing all of us?" Cam asked.

"I'm going to put it out there, that I'm the only thing between you guys, and her." Romeo answered. "Binta, if I don't make it back in one piece, I want you to go to Romeoburg. There are a few things there that may be of use to you."

Binta pulled out a compass.

"Fred gave this to me before he…." Binta started, before starting to sob quietly.

Romeo inspected the compass, and recognized the direction it was going in. It was pointing towards the direction of Romeoburg.

"That leads to Romeoburg." Romeo said. "Like I said, if I don't make it back, I want you to go there."

"T-Thank you." Binta responded. "Oh, and Romeo? Good luck."

Romeo nodded, before disappearing back to the tower where Fred had been killed just 10 minutes before. Romeo noted that the inventory pile was still there, but Xara was nowhere in sight.

"Xara?" Romeo shouted.

No response.

"Where the hell is she?"

Romeo started to investigate the tower. He went from room to room, but Xara was nowhere. Romeo couldn't detect any residue from her, aside from the residue that resulted from Fred's death, so he knew Xara hadn't gone far.

Romeo was searching the last room, when he heard a set of running footsteps approach him. Romeo turned around and was immediately caught off guard by a punch in the face. Romeo felt pain sear through his body, as his vision began to distort and flash a magnitude of colors. Once Romeo got his bearings, he look up and saw Xara standing over him.

"Hello, Romeo." She greeted sarcastically.

Romeo moved to try and take her powers away, but Xara was too quick, and she raised her gauntlet and punched Romeo again. Romeo felt his body sear in pain and the magnitude of colors flashed through his vision again.

Punch!

Punch!

Punch!

The pain was unbearable. As Romeo got up, he noticed that his body was distorting, and his face and hair were flashing between his own hair, Xara's hair, Fred's hair and a whole bunch of random styles and colors. His skin color flickered between Admin grey, and human pale.

Romeo tried to use his powers to move Xara, away, but the glitching became worse, and nothing happened.

"Having a little trouble there, Romeo?" Xara taunted.

"Fuck you!" Romeo growled.

"Aww, that's no way to talk to a friend!"

"You are not my friend!" Romeo responded through gritted teeth.

Xara gave Romeo another punch, and the pain became even more unbearable. The glitching doubled, and Romeo was sure that one more punch was going to finish him off.

"Well, that's just too bad then." Xara responded cooly, before giving Romeo one last punch. He flew through the air, landed on the wall on the opposite side of the room, before crashing to the ground. He felt one last jerk, before the magnitude of colors just disappeared.

Sitting himself up, he saw to his horror that he was no longer wearing his black admin suit with red glowing lines. He was wearing the grey t-shirt, jeans and sneakers that he was wearing when he got his Admin powers. That could only mean one thing.

Xara had taken away his powers.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Romeo exclaimed, before suddenly feeling himself being lifted into the air by Xara. His clothes were immediately replaced by an orange jumpsuit.

"Now, look out there, because you won't be seeing it ever again." Xara said.

Xara clapped her hands, followed by a huge rumble. Bedrock began to fill the sky.

"What are you doing?" Romeo panicked.

"Burying this sorry excuse of a world." Xara answered. "I'm going to build a new world and start afresh."

Romeo stopped struggling, realizing that it was useless.

As the world was consumed in darkness, and the bedrocking finally stopped. Xara gave one last shrill of laughter, before raising a hand. Romeo felt himself lose consciousness.

* * *

Author's Notes: So, just an introduction to the story. Basically, Xara becomes evil in this AU instead of Romeo. Next chapter will skip ahead to Jesse's time.

Oh, and Fred will remain dead in this story.

Like it? Review. Don't like it, look up another story.

More to follow.


	2. Eternal Night

Chapter 1 – Eternal Night

* * *

(Minecraft: Story Mode and its characters belong to Telltale Games, not me.)

* * *

_Season One carries out the same way as in canon._

_In Hero in Residence, instead of Vos falling out of the trap, Sammy falls out instead. The rest of the episode goes as canon._

* * *

(100 YEARS LATER)

Jesse had just finished fighting a huge giant Prismarine Colossus who called itself 'The Admin' and now he was confronting Petra who seemed to be planning to travel on an adventure with Jack, Nurm and Sammy without even informing him about it.

"Wait, you're leaving with these guys?" Jesse asked.

"Er, yeah." Petra said nervously.

"And that's, uh. Yeah, that's why we were… being weird before and, y'know, talking about, y'know, possible stuff." Jack admitted.

"Were you even going to tell me? Or were you just going to sneak off?" Jesse confronted.

"Of course, I was gonna tell you!" Petra responded, flustered. "I was just, working up to it. Slowly. Jesse, I promise I can explain. I just-"

A sudden static noise interrupted them.

"Wait, what? What's going on?" Petra asked.

Jesse saw that the other Beacontowners were just as confused about what was going on as he was. The static eventually faded, and suddenly a set of ringing sounds were heard. Fear sky-rocketed through Jesse's body as the sounds echoed through town. He knew those sounds. The last time he heard those sounds was when he was fighting PAMA, seven years ago.

"Oh no." Petra whispered.

The sounds suddenly stopped, and Jesse's gauntlet lit up.

"The Admin." Jesse said in realization.

He was answered by high-pitched laughter echoing through town.

"Why thank you, Captain Obvious." The female laughing voice answered. "Of course it's me, the Admin."

Looking behind him, Jesse saw a female hologram at the gates to Beacontown. The figure in the hologram had vibrant magenta messy hair, a purple colored suit with glowing yellow gems, and yellow skin. Her lips and nose had a blue tint to them and her pupils were glowing pink.

"Wait, you're the Admin?" Jesse queried.

"Uh, yeah?" The Admin responded, raising an eyebrow. Her voice had a slight robotic undertone. "What, you thought that giant Colossus was the real me? Come now, that was just one of my constructions. You know, to find out just how tough you are. And I must say, I am impressed."

"Thanks?" Jesse responded, uncertainly.

"In any case." The Admin continued. "While that Colossus might be all fun and games, I feel like it'll be easier to discuss things like this."

"Hold up, that was your idea of fun?" Jesse said, scandalized.

"Wow, rude." The Admin scoffed, narrowing her eyes at Jesse. "I mean, come on. Look at all of the stuff you've already done. Wither-Storm, Sky City, Murder Mansion, Artificial Intelligence, Old Builders. I knew a colossus would've been a piece of cake for you."

The Admin gave another high-pitched shriek of laughter.

"Where are you going with this?" Jesse assked.

"Let me explain." The Admin responded.

The Admin hologram clapped her hands, and the entire sky was plunged back into darkness. This time, with a red hue. Mobs were heard in the distance.

"Not again!" Jesse groaned.

"That Colossus? It was just a warm up. Now, it's time for your real test." The Admin announced. "You hear that? A giant wave of death and destruction headed right for town."

She gave another burst of high-pitched laughter that continued to make Jesse's skin crawl.

"She's psycho, that one!" Sammy commented.

Jesse nodded in agreement.

"They don't stand a chance, Admin. I am going to stop each and every one of your monsters." Jesse threatened.

"Careful, Jesse." The Admin warned. "You don't want to go biting off more than you can chew."

The Admin cleared her throat.

"Your objective is simple. If you want to pull your town out of eternal night, you will need to go and recapture that clock." She instructed.

"Which is where?" Jack asked.

The Admin responded with another burst of her high-pitched laughter.

"Oh, I won't tell you where. That'd be spoiling the surprise." She responded. "All you have to do, is follow the redstone trail. Easy!"

Sure enough, a redstone trail appeared behind her, slowly disappearing into the woods separating Beacontown from Champion City.

"Well, that sounds needlessly dangerous." Petra remarked.

The Admin gave a chuckle.

"You're putting innocent people in danger just for your games?" Jesse yelled.

"Ah, ah, ah. Let me stop you right there, Jesse." The Admin interrupted. "_You're_ the one who is putting them in danger by not going for that clock."

"Why are you doing this? What do you want from us?" Jesse asked.

"Why? Because it's fun! I loved watching you fight that colossus, and I'm sure you too must have had the time of your life fighting that thing."

Jesse's right hand itched towards his sword, but Jack beat him to it.

"Whaaat? Oh, come on!" Jack exclaimed. "Time to show this purple freak what the Skitarro Crag-Jumpers do to town destroyers!"

Jack unsheathed his sword and lunged straight at the hologram, only to phase right through her. The Admin gave another laugh in response.

"You cannot attack a hologram, dummy!" She taunted, turning to face Jack who was now behind her. She clapped her hands together, and armored skeletons appeared behind the group, inside Beacontown.

"Ah, stray mobs. Pesky little consequences of eternal night." She continued. "And Beacontown's new residents until you get through my new challenge. Remember, get through the challenge, find the clock and save the town. Ciao!"

The hologram faded.

"Augh! We need to protect the people!" Jesse instructed.

Sammy and Nurm turned around and ran back inside the town.

"RUN!" Sammy screamed as they ran off. Meanwhile, Jesse unsheathed his sword and proceeded to start attacking the mobs that the Admin had spawned. Once all of the mobs were taken care of, Jack spoke up.

"I've got a bad feeling more will be on the way soon." Jack said.

"Guys?" Lukas' voice called out. Jesse saw Lukas, Radar, Sammy and Nurm race towards them.

"Jesse! It was the craziest thing! That clock just vanished from under my nose!" Lukas reported.

"I know, and now the situation is just going to get worse until we get it back." Jesse said.

"Yeah, by following this stupid redstone trail here." Petra added.

"I'm coming too." Radar said. "I was happy to stay behind and watch Beacontown last time you left, but this time I wanna do more. If it's to keep Beacontown safe, I'll do anything."

"Oh man, proud of you, Radar."

"Really?" Radar asked.

"Of course!"

"Well, I… I won't let you down!" Radar assured.

"All right, everyone. We've got a clock to find." Jesse instructed.

As they began to follow the redstone trail, Jack stopped Nurm.

"Can't let you come along on this one, old friend." Jack said.

Nurm made a noise of confusion.

"I promise, I will come back."

"You stay safe, Nurm, okay?"

Nurm responded by hugging Jesse. Stampy and Stacy rushed out of the hiding spot they were in.

"Is that woman gone?" Stacy asked.

"Yeah, for now. Block this up after we leave, would ya?" Jesse instructed.

"On it."

"Yes, we will defend Beacontown with our very lives." Stampy assured.

"Thanks, guys. Bye Nurm!"

Jesse, Jack, Petra, Sammy, Lukas and Radar set off into the reddish colored night, following the redstone trail.

"We're all counting on you!" Stampy called.

"I wish I knew more about whatever their quest is." Stacy added.

* * *

Nobody really said anything for the first part of the journey, until Jesse stopped and took a look around.

"Stay close." Jesse whispered, before continuing on. The group continued to follow him.

"I don't mean to sound suspicious, but do we really think the Admin is going to keep her word about this clock?" Jack asked.

"Yeah, I don't exactly get a 'trustworthy' vibe off of her." Petra agreed.

"I dunno. I mean, I thought she seemed sincere. Why set all this up if she wasn't going to really let us fix things?" Jesse said.

"Yeah, well, color me skeptical." Jack said.

Petra approached Jesse.

"Hey Jesse. Uh, can we, um, talk?"

"Right, I'll just walk a little bit away from you. Give you some privacy." Sammy said, moving away from Jesse and Petra.

"Oh! Uh, right, ha, me… me too." Radar said.

"About that trip with Jack." Petra started. "I promise, it's not like it seems. It's just a little trip. A little time away from Beacontown. To, I dunno, find myself?"

Had the Admin not showed up and forced them on this quest, it definitely seemed like Petra and Jack were gonna rush off without telling Jesse. Jesse felt betrayed at this.

"And you didn't invite me. You didn't even tell me until I caught you." Jesse pointed out.

"I, I thought you would be busy with all the rebuilding and everything." Petra admitted. "I, I really am sorry that it happened this way. I was just so excited to be hanging out with real, hardcore adventurers again."

"Especially because I was worried that you, that you didn't… need me anymore." Petra finished.

"Petra, of course I need you. That's ridiculous." Jesse said.

"Ugh! See, this is why it would've been so much easier if you hadn't found out like this. It's just…"

Petra sighed.

"Everything's so different from when we first became friends. Everything's changed." Petra ranted. "Lukas, Axel, Olivia, they all changed too. They found what made them happy. Their _thing._"

"But me? I still haven't found mine." Petra continued. "Do you know how hard that is? How, how that feels?"

"I mean, if I'm honest. It does seem like adventure is your calling. The open road." Jesse said.

"Right? That's kinda what I thought too." Petra agreed.

A noise made the group stop. Jesse slowly walked up to the front of the group and waved the torch he was carrying around. A silhouette of a mob was approaching them in the distance, and it eventually entered the light, revealing it to be….

"Lluna?" Jesse questioned.

"Is that llama wearing a scarf?" Sammy asked.

"Huh, think she ran away again?" Petra suggested.

"Uh, excuse me." Lukas spoke up. "Speaking for the group; you guys know a llama?"

"Where'd she come from?" Sammy questioned.

"This is Lluna. She's kinda cute, right?" Jesse commented. "We returned her to her owner, Stella."

"She is cute, isn't she?" A familiar voice agreed. "Everyone get away from my llama!"

It was Stella.

"No!" Petra groaned.

"Jesse! My rival." Stella greeted. "Should've known I would find you here."

Lluna made a noise.

"Hush, I'm talking."

"Yeah, I'm… I'm still really not your rival." Jesse corrected. "Really."

"So you say. And yet here we still meet."

Jesse honestly didn't know whether he disliked more, the Admin or Stella. If he didn't know better, he'd say they were sisters.

"Okay, what is going on here?" Lukas asked.

"Lukas, this is Stella. The leader of Champion City." Jesse introduced. "This is Jack, Sammy and Radar."

Stella approached Jack.

"Jacques, was it? As in, the legendary champion?"

Jack gave a sheepish grin.

"So, what exactly are you doing here, Stella?" Jesse asked.

"I don't know if you've been paying attention, but you might have noticed that the entire world is now trapped in this hideous red colored night. That's what." Stella said. "I came out to investigate and surprise, surprise, it's you. If you're smart, you'll undo, whatever it is you did and put things right again."

"Just, wow." Petra commented.

"Can't believe you're all alone. Thought you had people to do things like this for you." Jesse quipped.

"Ha, that's what you think. But when Champion City is threatened, I am not going to refuse the call." Stella shot back.

"I believe we have the job well-covered." Sammy said. "We're on our way to fight a mighty Admin and set things right."

"The what now?" Stella repeated, confused.

"Admin. Crazy powerful woman." Jesse explained. "She's the one who's behind all this, and she's the one who we are going to fight."

"All right, let's say I believe you." Stella said. "I suppose I'll just have to find a way to fix it, it's my world too, after all."

Stella hopped into Lluna.

"You'll see, I'll fix it all on my own. I don't need any of you losers." Stella boasted, before gasping in surprise upon spotting the moon.

Jesse saw that the moon too was colored red but was also glitching around.

"Whoa. The moon!" Jesse exclaimed, at a loss for words.

"Okay, that's freaky." Jack added.

"So, Stella." Jesse continued. "You were saying?"

"I was saying that, maybe I'll… stick around for a bit. Just to keep an eye on you." Stella suggested.

Jesse rolled his eyes before continuing on.

"Y'know, I've been thinking about it, and I totally agree that 'adventure' is probably the closest I've got to a 'thing.'" Petra said. "But did this adventure really have to include Stella?"

Jesse gave a chuckle.

They continued on in silence until an echo from Lluna made Radar jump.

"Uh, you okay, Radar?" Jack asked.

"Yes! Yes, totally fine."

"Guys, shh." Jesse snapped. "We need to keep an eye- whoa!"

Jesse's eyes widened upon seeing what was right in-front of them. A giant tower loomed out of the ground like a sore thumb. Jesse could see millions of redstone circuits, connecting to various different things within the tower.

"I'm… actually kind of speechless right now." Jack commented.

"Man, all that redstone wiring. Color me impressed." Petra added.

"If I didn't know better, I would believe that it was powering some big." Jesse said. "Like PAMA, for instance?"

"PAMA?" Sammy asked, confused.

"Mind-controlling computer that they had to fight in one of their previous adventures." Jack explained.

"You holding up okay?" Jesse asked Jack. "Not gonna have another, episode?"

"No, no. No I'm not. I'm taking my fear, my anger, my rage, my fear, and um, converting them into pure awesomeness." Jack responded.

"Uh, good. Good." Jesse said, uncertainly.

"Hey, found the clock." Lukas pointed out.

Looking up, Jesse could see the yellow outline of the clock. Sure enough, it was suspended over 200 feet off the ground.

"Oh, perfect. But, how are we gonna get up there?" Petra asked.

"Well, the Admin mentioned _challenges_." Jesse said. "I'm guessing there's gonna be, like, obstacles or something when we get there."

"Wait, do I have this right? Are you telling me that this _Admin_ woman is so powerful, she built all of this instantly?" Stella questioned, awestruck.

"You sound almost jealous." Radar commented.

"_Almost?_ Of course I'm jealous of power like that." Stella said. "Power is how the world is run, little man. It's what people respect. What they listen to."

"Stella, I know you haven't met her yet. But I promise you, the Admin is nuts." Jesse pointed out.

"Yeah, you really don't want any part of that. Trust me." Jack agreed.

"Ah, lesser minds often DO mistake true genius for madness." Stella said.

"On second thought, with the way you two act. Maybe I can't wait for you two to meet each other." Jack continued. "You're practically sisters."

"Oh, Stella, you'll never change." Radar said.

"Oh, I thought I recognized you!" Stella recognized, her voice almost going as high as the Admin's. "You're the quitter who used to work on my inventory management team!"

"Wait, wait. Do you two know each other?" Jesse asked.

"Uh, yeah. I, uh, I used to live in Champion City." Radar admitted.

"What?"

"I don't know what he told you to get on this little 'team' but I don't think he even knows how to use a sword." Stella whispered.

"Oh, you don't know anything, Stella, so zip it." Radar snapped.

"Ooh, how do you put up with that little voice of his, Jesse? I know I never could." Stella commented.

"Not everyone needs to know how to swing a sword, Stella. Radar has a lot of his own skills." Jesse pointed out.

"Yeah! Thanks, Jesse." Radar exclaimed.

"Can't wait to see 'em. I'll call you if the Admin needs to _file_ anything." Stella laughed. "Come along, Lluna."

Lluna bucked Stella off before racing ahead. Stella racing after her.

"Thanks, Jesse. I appreciate that." Radar said. "I'm not the person she thinks I am anymore. I've changed, and I can prove it. I can be different. Braver."

"Yeah, you've definitely changed, Radar. It's always important to try and grow."

"Yeah, and I promise; I'll make you proud."

Lukas whistled in amazement.

"Would you look at that."

"Yeah, the Admin could definitely give Harper a run for her money, and that's putting it lightly." Jesse agreed.

"Haven't seen anything that grand since the last time I visited the Overcompensating Builders of E'gesh." Jack added.

"You and me both." Sammy agreed.

Jesse saw a lever to the right.

"Oh boy, my favorite: mystery levers." Petra commented.

Jesse approached it and pulled it. The static noise from before was heard, and the hologram of the Admin appeared again.

"Well, well, well." The Admin said. "Who do we have here? Didn't expect there to be so many people here."

"Here we go again." Jesse sighed.

"Still a little early to make judgements yet, but I can't say I'm very sure of your choice of company though." The Admin pointed out. "This building here, it's specifically designed to cater for the best of the best."

The Admin glanced at Sammy, Petra and Jack, before moving her gaze to Lukas, Radar and Stella.

"Not exactly suitable for your average… loser?"

Stella stepped up.

"Admin, ma'am. I'm Stella." Stella introduced, doing a salute gesture. "Founder of Champion City. Maybe you've heard of me?"

"Can't say I have." The Admin said. "Although, I do like your style, Stella. Let's just hope you have what it takes to make it through to the end."

The Admin turned around, focusing her glowing pink eyes on the giant tower that was filled with trails of redstone dust.

"This tower here? This is where we separate the strong from the weak." The Admin announced. "So, ready to find out just how capable your miserable excuses of companions are?"

The Admin gave another high-pitched maniacal laugh that made Jesse's skin crawl once again.

"You watch it, missy." Jack warned.

"Wow, I'm terrified." The Admin deadpanned sarcastically, giving Jack a bored stare.

"I'll admit, I am totally stoked!" Jesse said.

"Are we really sure what we're getting ourselves into?" Radar whispered.

"AHA! That's more like it!" The Admin exclaimed in response. "New creations of my own design, plus mining fatigue at every corner. Wouldn't want to risk you cheating. I abhor rule breakers."

"I can see that you all want to get to that clock, but first, you have to get through my challenges." The Admin continued. "And trust me, they're hard. Really, _really,_ hard! To be honest, I can only see Jesse here making it to the end."

"I'll give you one thing, Admin. This place is pretty spectacular." Jesse said.

The Admin's yellow face beamed at this. She gave a grin.

"Well, enough jibber jabber. Let's get cracking!"

The Admin clapped her hands, and the floor underneath them opened, dropping them into a pit. The Admin gave one last sinister chuckle before the hologram disappeared.

* * *

Author's Notes: Oh, and here's the link to the tumblr post that gave me the idea to start writing this. (Remove the spaces)

mayomamasui . tumblr post / 1838 85470 784/ swap-xara-and-romeo

Like it? Review. Don't like it, look up another story.

More to follow.


	3. Challenges

Chapter 2 – Challenges

* * *

(Minecraft: Story Mode and its characters belong to Telltale Games, not me.)

* * *

Jesse felt himself land face first onto the floor below. Looking up, he saw Jack running along the wall, before jumping off and landing spectacularly on his feet in-front of Jesse.

"Nice landing." Jesse commented.

"Ah, it's nothing. It's just my perfect reflexes and photographic muscle memory." Jack said.

The door above them snapped shut, trapping them inside.

"Well, that's it then. The way is shut." Radar said.

"Well, I guess the only way out, is through the challenge." Sammy responded.

"Yeah! And smashing that clock." Petra finished.

"Well, we're not all going to be smashing the clock." Stella said.

"Say what now?" Jesse questioned.

"You heard the Admin. She only wants the best of the best, and that's going to be me."

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding." Lukas scoffed.

"Sorry, handsome. Might as well quit now."

"Wait, but what about your people? Champion City?" Jesse pointed out. "You're totally selling them out!"

"Boy, do you think small. If I'm working with the Admin, I'll be able to help Champion City even more." Stella clarified. "I hope."

Jesse gave Stella a glare as they continued on. Looking around, Jesse saw that the giant hallway looked very similar to the interior of PAMA's core. They were on a glass pathway, and Jesse saw loads of redstone circuits flashing on and off in the distance.

Eventually, they reached the end of the catwalk, in which the path split into two and led towards two tunnels, each with a set of minecarts.

"Wow, it's… it's amazing." Stella gawked.

"Hmph. You're her little buddy, Jesse. You know anything about what might happen after we get the clock?" Jack asked.

"Imagine the Admin as your friend. All of the things you could create and do with an ally like that." Sammy said.

"All I know, is that I don't trust anything the Admin says." Jesse said.

"Uh, I'd agree with that." Radar agreed.

Lluna sniffed Jesse's gauntlet.

"Come on, Lluna!" Stella called out. "Enough of these losers! We've got treasure to find."

"Hey!" Jesse snapped, yanking the gauntlet away from Lluna. She approached Stella.

"Treasure-sniffing llama. Hm-hmm, yeah. Tell your friends." Stella boasted before hitting Lluna in the rear-end.

"Hey now." Jack started.

"Hey, don't treat Lluna like that. She obviously hates it!" Jesse stood up.

"I think I know my darling Lluna a little better than you do!" Stella snapped. "Let's go, Lluna!"

Lluna gave Jesse a sad look before turning around and rejoining Stella.

"Well, that woman does appear to have a strong idea of what she wants." Sammy commented.

"Are you kidding? She's nuts." Lukas said.

"Ah! Uh, well. No one knows better than I that the Admin's tests and traps certainly do mean business." Sammy continued.

"You've got a point there, old friend. I don't want to see anyone else get hurt." Jack agreed.

"Yes, and it's like she said. Not everyone here might be, up to the task." Sammy added.

Lukas and Radar glared at Sammy.

"I'm just being honest with you." Sammy defended. "I'm not trying to put you down or anything."

"Then I guess we're just gonna prove how wrong the Admin is." Jesse said.

"Fine!" Sammy conceded. "But, if something happens to them, I won't be the one to blame. Come with me, Jack. Let's try and scope this place out."

Sammy and Jack walked away.

"I'm… I'm gonna go talk to them." Petra sighed, before joining them.

"Well, I have never been so offended, not in my whole life." Radar remarked.

"Yeah. That, wasn't the coolest." Lukas agreed.

"_Wasn't the coolest?_ Oh, no. Misfiling your acacia wood during material organization week _isn't the coolest._ That was, that was a stripe too far!" Radar ranted. "Just because I'm not some sword-swinging meathead, they think they can just walk all over me! Th-th-they think, they look at me, and my, well, skinny little arms, and they think they know me? They think they know me!? Well, they are wrong, dead wrong! I mean, I have been an embarrassment sometimes, but it stops here! IT ENDS TODAY! And, I… I guess I'm done. Sorry!"

"I need you to remember that out there, the world is stuck in eternal night." Jesse reminded. "And there are a lot of scared people back in Beacontown who are counting on us!"

"You're right."

Petra approached Jesse.

"We were talking and decided it would be best, for everyone, if Radar stays here, with Lukas. While we go get the clock." Petra said.

Before Jesse could respond, a noise from Lluna got their attention.

"That's it, Lluna darling!" Stella appraised. "She's got the clock's scent! Haha! Later losers!"

Stella and Lluna sped away on minecarts.

Jack and Sammy raced into the minecarts behind them.

"We're wasting time!" Jack said.

"Wait, it's like Jesse said. We can't trust the Admin!" Radar said. "Sure, it looks like Lluna found something, but that's-"

"-what the Admin wants us to think." Lukas finished.

"You saw the llama!" Sammy called out. Petra looked at Jesse.

"Jesse? You're coming, right?" Petra asked.

"We could really use a hand over here." Lukas said, gesturing towards his own minecart.

Jesse decided to go with Lukas and Radar.

"I gotta go with them." Jesse said. "Be safe, okay?"

"If you're sure." Petra responded.

Jesse hopped onto a minecart behind Radar.

"Woo-hoo! I knew you'd make the smart choice!" Radar exclaimed.

The minecarts lurched into action and sped off. It was as if they were in a rollercoaster. The track rapidly angled upwards.

"This place is huge!" Jesse commented as he took a look around. The entire room had a red hue, and Jesse saw redstone trails everywhere.

"Oh boy!" Lukas exclaimed as the track angled downward, the minecarts racing towards top speed.

"I QUESTION MY JUDGEMENT!" Radar screamed as they rapidly sped around corners.

This went on for about 30 more seconds before they reached the end of the track.

"Well, that's one way to get where you're going!" Lukas remarked.

"Everybody okay?" Jesse asked.

"Definitely! What a rush." Lukas answered.

Radar slowly peaked his head out of the minecart.

"Ah, uh, I'm all right." Radar said. "I'm oka-"

Radar made a noise as if he was about to throw up. Jesse covered his eyes.

"Ugh, I am so sorry." Radar apologized. "I'm okay, really. Just getting my adventure legs. I'll be better in a min-"

Radar almost threw up again.

"Hey, it's okay. Take the time you need."

"Yeah, we'll wait." Lukas said.

"No, no, no, no, no. Oh, It's not so bad. I can do this."

The hologram of the purple figure known as the Admin appeared again.

"Oh you poor thing." She drawled. "I pity your friends if you can't handle something as trivial as a minecart. Hello there, me again. The hologram known as the Admin."

The Admin gave a chuckle after uttering that statement. She began to walk into the next room, Jesse, Lukas and Radar following.

"Luckily for you, though. This room is simple. All you have to do, is find the exit." The Admin said, showing off the next challenge room.

Jesse saw a building of what appeared to be a spider head in the middle, and three caged off sections on each side of the room except the side they came from.

"So we have to… escape the room?" Jesse said.

"More or less." The Admin answered. "Not going to get any hints from me though. That'd be ruining it."

"I don't need your hints. This game will be over before it even gets started." Jesse responded.

"Well, isn't someone a little bit cocky today?" The Admin said. "Anyway, why are we wasting time talking? Let's get to figuring out this room already."

The Admin raised her left arm. Radar and Lukas floated 10 feet into the air before disappearing.

"LUKAS! RADAR!" Jesse exclaimed.

"Don't worry. They're still here."

Jesse saw Radar and Lukas reappear in two of the closed off rooms.

"But the question remains, will you be able to get them out?"

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?" Radar shouted.

The Admin gave another burst of high-pitched laughter.

"Oh, and one last thing." The Admin added before clapping her hands. 10 feet above Jesse, appeared Sammy. She immediately fell to the ground.

"W-where? How?" Sammy stammered.

"Just in case you need a helping hand." The Admin clarified. "Ah, well. Good luck."

The hologram disappeared.

"Okay, escape time." Jesse said, taking a look around. He approached the room that was still empty. He saw the escape door.

"Definitely the way out." Jesse observed. To the right, he saw item frames with diamonds in them. "But what is that? Diamonds?"

"Appears that way to me." Sammy said.

"One puzzle at a time, Jesse." Jesse whispered to himself as he went to explore around the room. He approached Lukas' cage.

"Whatcha got back there?" Jesse asked.

"Looks like it was supposed to be a cobweb." Lukas said. "But half of the blocks are missing."

Jesse approached the building of a spider head in the middle. It seemed to be half-creeper and half-spider.

"Half-creeper, half-spider. Charming." Jesse said. He used a pickaxe to mine up the creeper half of the building, before approaching Radar's cage. Radar seemed to be pulling random levers inside the cage.

"WHY, WON'T, YOU, WORK!" Radar growled as he pulled the lever up and down.

"You okay?" Jesse asked.

"No, not really." Radar responded. "To be honest, I need some kind of help here. I need help getting past this stupid iron door. This contraption here looks like it's supposed to do something, but I can't seem to figure out what. Any thoughts?"

Jesse took a look at the four sets of lever inside Radar's cage. It seems they needed to be activated in a set order. After a few minutes of staring at it, Jesse saw a few clues that led to the order the levers need to be activated in. After telling Radar this, Radar activated it in the order that Jesse said.

The iron door slammed open, to reveal a chest.

"Ah, it's so simple now!" Radar exclaimed before racing to the chest. Radar opened it up, took a redstone block out and handed it back to Jesse.

Jesse approached Lukas' cage again and handed the creeper parts of the statue to Lukas.

"This clay should fill up the spots in the floor." Jesse said.

"Okay. Give me a moment."

Lukas placed the green clay into the matching spots in the floor. A dropper dropped a set of black clay upon completing the pattern. Lukas picked them up.

"I guess these are for you."

"Thanks." Jesse said as he took them. He moved to the statue and filled in the right half, matching it with the left half.

"Looks as perfect as a creepy statue can get."

At once, the doors to the three cages opened.

"Jesse, you did it!" Lukas exclaimed.

"HOORAY!" Radar exclaimed.

"Eh, heh, Nice work, Jesse!" Sammy appraised.

The room started rumbling and the floor underneath them began to lower. Immediately, the group of four raced onto the platform with the spider head building on it. It was opening up to reveal a water pit.

"Uh, guys?" Lukas called out, nervously. He pointed to the ceiling of the room. Purple colored spiders were crawling out of the ceiling, and down the walls towards them.

"Everyone, run!" Jesse shouted, before running towards the final puzzle of the room. He pulled on the door, only to find it locked.

"Another puzzle!" Sammy observed.

"Jesse, we'll hold them off. Solve the puzzle." Lukas instructed.

"On it."

Sammy joined Lukas while Radar stayed behind with Jesse.

"Just need to make something to activate that redstone circuit again. There's gotta be something in here we can use." Jesse said to Radar. He opened a chest and pulled out a bunch of spider eyes.

"Ugh, who would fill a chest with spider eyes?" Jesse commented. Looking at the item frames, he saw that some of them seemed to match up with the banners, but the others had a red colored banner on top of them instead of cyan. Jesse looked at the spider eyes that he pulled out, and they seemed to be similar colored.

"Come on, Jesse!" Radar said.

Acting blindly, Jesse replaced the diamonds with spider eyes on the frames with a red banner. A chest moved out of the wall underneath them.

"Yes, guys. I got it. There's a chest." Jesse called out.

"A chest?" Sammy repeated.

"Can it open the door?" Lukas asked.

Jesse opened the chest and pulled out some glass, wood slabs and nether quartz.

"Glass, wood slabs, nether quartz?"

"That's it, Jesse. I got it. Daylight Sensor." Radar exclaimed, taking the items. He rushed to a crafting table and rapidly crafted it into a daylight sensor. He put it into the slot with the empty redstone trail and switched it to inverse mode. The door opened.

"I GOT IT!" Radar screamed.

"Ni-ice!" Lukas commented.

But there was a more immediate problem. Purple spiders were beginning to surround Sammy, and they picked her up.

"Agh, Let- Let me doooown!" Sammy screamed as they threw her off the edge.

"SAMMY!"

"GO! SAVE YOURSELVES!" Sammy shouted as she disappeared into a tunnel.

"SAMMY!" Jesse screamed again.

"Guys, we have to move." Lukas said, before racing towards the door. Jesse and Radar followed.

"That was, oh wow. I mean, Sammy." Radar stammered.

* * *

"That wasn't your fault, Radar." Lukas said. "Sammy has to be somewhere in this place. We'll find her."

"That was intense!" Radar remarked. "Would it be weird for me to go in for a hug? Cuz, uh, I'm kinda feelin' the hug vibe right now."

Jesse hugged Radar with a chuckle.

"Oh, wow. You're a good hugger."

Petra and Jack appeared behind them.

"Petra!" Jesse called out.

"Hey, have you guys seen Sammy?" Jack asked. "One second she was with us, and the next… gone!"

Jesse heard a muffled scream come from below him. Racing towards the edge, he took a look at the water below. He saw Sammy come out of a pipe, get washed down the water current and disappear through another tunnel. Not only that, but Jesse saw that Stella was in the same situation.

"Hello? Help! Um, a little help here?" Stella pleaded.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Jack screamed.

"No one deserves this." Lukas said. "Not even Stella. She might be a bit stuck up, and she doesn't really treat anyone that nicely, but…"

"Stella's been totally impossible, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't help her." Jesse agreed.

"Ugh, you have a point." Petra groaned.

The Admin appeared in the doorway in-front of her, leaving behind a trail of purple ender particles. This time, she was no longer a hologram, but actually there in person.

"Stop!"

Jesse and the group came to a halt.

"Just, just stop for a moment! You've got this wrong! All wrong! You're not supposed to help each other." The Admin explained. "You're supposed to be trying to get ahead of each other. Just take Radar here for example."

Radar flinched back in surprise.

"He was supposed to figure out that lever room by himself, without your help. And yet you just gave the solution of that room to him, making him do little work himself. And then he did the daylight sensor puzzle for _you_, rather than letting you figure that one out on your own."

Jesse noticed that the Admin was not laughing hysterically after every sentence, and that she was giving them a look of annoyance, rather than sadistic pleasure.

"And that defeats the whole purpose of me putting you through those challenges. It's meant to highlight the strong people in a group, and you can't exactly do that, if everyone is helping each other."

"Teamwork makes the dreamwork, Admin." Jesse responded. "You can't always do everything alone."

The Admin gave Jesse a glare, and he responded by raising his gauntlet. Lukas raised his bow, and Petra unsheathed Miss Butter.

"Fine!" The Admin conceded. "We'll play it your way, see how long that'll last you."

"Now, this is where the fun really begins." The Admin said, her sadistic playful demeanor reappearing. "I'm going to put it out there now that this next room is a little bit… dangerous."

The Admin gave another burst of her high-pitched laughter. Jesse was really starting to hate this woman.

"And one more thing." The Admin said, before raising her hand. Radar began to float upwards.

"Hey, don't, ah! Ahh! Oh, no, no- nononononono! Oh man, not good! Ahh! IIEEEEEEE!"

Radar went flying into the room in-front of them.

"NO!" Jesse screamed.

"But he's so small!" Jack added.

"If you are really that concerned with helping everybody, maybe you might find some way to help Radar out of the predicament he's in. Mmkay?" The Admin said. "Don't answer, I know you will. Welp, ciao!"

The Admin disappeared. Jesse, Petra, Jack and Lukas rushed into the room in pursuit of Radar. He landed on a set of wooden pressure plates.

"Don't worry guys, everything is A-O-K-"

A wall opened up to reveal a shulker, which targeted and fired at Radar, causing him to float upwards.

"Oh! Oooh, oh no, oh no."

The floor opened up in-front of Jesse and the others, preventing them from catching Radar.

"This is not good. We have to do something." Lukas said.

Jesse spotted a bunch of cacti.

"He'll have to maneuver past all that cacti." Jesse observed. "Floating lava? That's just, that's crazy!"

"There's a door." Petra pointed.

"Go for the door!" Lukas shouted.

Radar found himself stuck against a set of stone blocks.

"He's not going to make it! We can't just stand here!"

Jesse saw a pressure plate in the floor. Assuming that it will reveal a shulker, Jesse stood on it. A shulker appeared and hit Jesse with one of its beams. Using the floating perk, Jesse dodged the magma blocks and maneuvered his way towards Radar.

"Radar! The door!" Jesse pointed.

"Jesse, Jesse I just had a thought. Maybe, maybe I can do this!" Radar said, grinning at Jesse. "Maybe I am a hero!"

Jesse grabbed Radar's hand, and started to guide Radar towards the door, only to be knocked down by a set of magma blocks.

"Or not!" Radar added.

Jesse landed face down on the ground, while Radar flew right past him into the water.

"RADAR!" Jesse exclaimed, watching in horror as Radar was washed away.

"This, this is impossible." Jesse said. "The Admin told us to go through her stupid challenge, but maybe we can find another way."

Jesse heard a llama noise through the iron wall.

"Did anyone-?" Lukas started.

Jesse pressed his ear against the wall and heard more noises from Lluna.

"Lluna? If that llama can get to the other side of the wall, so can we." Jesse said.

He raised an arm and proceeded to try and punch through the wall, when his arm suddenly felt weak. Stupid mining fatigue.

"Yeah, we're never punching through that. Anyone got anything to make a pickaxe?" Jesse asked.

Lukas pulled out some sticks.

"I have some sticks." He said.

Jesse pulled out the diamonds that he got from the previous room.

"Three diamonds." Jesse said.

"That sounds like a diamond pickaxe to me." Jack concluded.

Jesse crafted it into a diamond pickaxe and began to mine the wall up. Sure enough, Lluna was in the adjacent room. The room was tall and had red lighting. There were redstone circuits everywhere. To the right of them, they saw a tunnel that vaguely resembled the edges of the tunnels that Jesse saw Stella, Radar and Sammy disappear into.

"The tubes, they're going up." Lukas observed.

"Then our friends went up, and that's where we're headed too." Jesse answered.

"Uh, hate to point out the obvious, but we can't climb." Jack said, before being hit by a shulker bolt. "Oh no."

More shulker bolts hit every single person inside the room, and they all began to float up.

* * *

Author's Notes: Oh yes, we all know what's coming next chapter.

Like it? Review. Don't like it, look up another story.

More to follow.


	4. The Admin

Chapter 3 – The Admin

* * *

(Minecraft: Story Mode and its characters belong to Telltale Games, not me.)

* * *

As Jesse, Jack, Lukas, Petra and Lluna floated into the next room above them, Jesse heard the unmistakable noise of the clock's ticking echoing around the room. This was it, they were almost there.

"There! We're getting close!" Jesse pointed out.

"Excellent." Jack responded.

"We better hurry though, what if the Admin comes back and finds out we broke her stuff?" Petra said.

Jesse did a double take at that statement. He didn't think of that. What if she did find out they cheated? Things could get very ugly for them.

"Yeah, there's no telling how long we have before the Admin figures out what we've done." Jack agreed.

"She's going to be, like, really really mad." Petra added.

"Hey, she said get to the clock, right? So, we're getting to the clock." Jesse said, deciding not to voice his concerns about how she would react to what they did.

"Yeah, I guess it's still winning. Technically." Petra agreed.

They floated past a platform, where Stella and Radar were being held behind iron bar cells.

"Hey, look!" Jesse gasped.

"Ah, Jesse! Woohoohoo!" Radar exclaimed.

"I don't see Sammy though." Jack whispered.

"Hold tight, we're coming to save you." Jesse called out.

"You better keep my llama safe. Especially from those." Stella snapped.

"Especially from-"

Jesse saw what Stella was talking about, and immediately wished he hadn't. It was an Enderman with a creeper face on it.

"Ah, more of the Admin's freaky mobs." Jack said.

It teleported towards him and began to flash, exploding and knocking all of them to various platforms around the giant room.

"Lluna!" Stella exclaimed.

"Ugh! Man I hate those, purple, Ender Creepers. Ugh." Petra groaned as she got up.

"You and me. You and me both." Jack agreed.

"Oh, thank goodness you're all right sweetie!" Stella said.

"Oh, man. That looked like it hurt! I thought you were really in trouble!" Radar added. "One minute, you were falling through the air, the next, BOOM!"

"C'mon, C'monnn." Jesse yelled back. "I've had worse than that for breakfast!"

"Sorry! This is all still pretty new to me!" Radar admitted.

"Look, that wasn't the last of the ender… creeper things." Lukas said, pointing towards more Ender-Creepers.

"And I still can't see Sammy!" Jack panicked.

Jesse saw that Petra and Jack were closest to the clock.

"We're gonna have to divide and conquer here, people." Jesse said. "One of you go for the clock, one of you come with me and Lukas to rescue the others."

Jesse looked at Petra.

"Petra, I believe in you. Go for the clock." Jesse said. "Jack, you come with us."

Petra closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"Okay. Okay." She said.

"Hey, be careful up there." Jack warned.

"Right."

Petra began to move towards the clock.

"Lluna? Sweetie?" Stella called out.

Lluna turned around and walked away.

"Hehe, smart llama." Lukas remarked.

"Lluna!" Stella snapped. Lluna ignored her. "But, but why?"

Jesse, Jack and Lukas landed on the platform that Radar and Stella were on. No sign of Sammy around.

"Jesse, coming to my rescue. Just like I dreamt it."

"You have got some weird dreams, Radar." Jesse said.

"Sorry! Still a little groggy from going through all those pipes. Pretend I didn't say anything." Radar responded.

"Uh, Jesse?" Lukas called out.

The Ender-Creepers were screeching at them.

"You better hustle! Got some real nasty customers coming our way" Jack said.

While Jack and Lukas engaged the Ender-Creepers, Jesse pulled out his pickaxe and mined the iron bars of the cell.

"C'mon, Radar. We gotta get you out, fast!" Jesse said as he mined the iron bars. Once he mined the hole big enough, Radar stepped out. Lukas and Jack had finished dispatching the Ender-Creepers.

"Okay, I got a feeling they won't be gone for long." Lukas said.

"Ahem, Jesse. Hello?" Stella said, getting Jesse's attention.

"Stella." Jesse greeted.

"I could've found that clock, obviously. But there was some signage that was very confusing, and well, I, you know, wound up here." Stella recounted. "Kept hoping the Admin would drop by so I could explain the confusion. But when we do talk, you better believe that she's going to realize that I am the perfect partner for her."

"Stella, would you please just stop talking already?" Jesse groaned, getting tired of her annoying voice.

"Fine, enough chitchat. How about you get me on outta here?" Stella suggested.

"Really?" Jack deadpanned.

"Okay, fine. Just… don't make me regret it, all right?" Jesse conceded, before mining Stella's cell open.

"Knew you would. Our fates are intertwined, after all. Who are either of us without the other?" Stella said as Jesse opened her cell.

Meanwhile, Petra had managed to climb to the clock.

"Nice work, Petra!" Jesse appraised. "Come on, guys. Let's go give her a hand!"

Jesse mined the obsidian platform and used it to build a staircase up to the platform right underneath the clock. As they reached the platform, a huge stream of light entered the chamber, illuminating all of the redstone wiring within the walls. Looking up, Jesse saw that they were at the very top of the giant tower. The sun was up now. It was over.

"Amazing." Radar gawked.

Petra pulled out her sword and stabbed it into the clock and jumped off, causing the clock to explode.

"Look at that! You did it!" Jesse exclaimed.

"Yeah, I guess I did, huh?"

"Awesome job. I'm so proud of you."

Jesse and Petra embraced into a hug.

"Uh, help. Crushing… lungs." Petra gasped.

"Ahem! Not to interrupt all the celebrating, but escaping?" Lukas pointed out.

"I can't leave without Sammy." Jack said.

"Go ahead guys! We'll catch up!" Jesse instructed.

"Just, hurry, okay? I don't like worrying about you." Lukas said.

Radar and Lukas moved off, climbing down the outside of the tower. Stella turned around and looked at them.

"What's your angle? Waiting around for the Admin?" Stella questioned.

"I need to find her." Jack insisted.

"Don't worry, Jack. I'm gonna help you." Jesse assured.

"Me too." Petra said.

"Thank you."

"Well, well, well." Sammy's voice said. "Isn't this surprising?"

"Sammy?!" Jack gasped.

"I should've known it wouldn't have happened how I wanted it to go. It was just too good to be true." Sammy continued, ignoring Jack. Her voice had a cold demeanor to it.

"I, how did you get here, Sammy?" Jack asked.

Sammy rolled her head before turning to look at Jesse.

"Either way, it doesn't matter. I still got what I wanted." Sammy finished, ignoring Jack. "But still, I don't understand how you could continue to help people even though they were getting in the way and dragging you down. Take that last room for example."

Sammy turned her gaze directly towards Jesse. Jesse was feeling unnerved by Sammy's cold tone.

"But like I said, it doesn't matter. I got what I wanted."

"Sammy, friend. What are you doing?" Jack asked, trembling. "Why are you saying these things?"

"You are really freaking me out right now, Sammy." Jesse said.

"Am I now?" 'Sammy' responded, before giving a sinister chuckle.

"W-What?" Jack stammered.

"Wow, you really are thick, aren't you?" 'Sammy' commented. "I've made it so obvious, and yet you still haven't figured it out? No matter."

'Sammy' began to step forward, creating a huge tremor with her footstep. Her body began to glow purple-white and she began to float. Jesse had to close his eyes from the bright light coming from 'Sammy'. A huge shockwave of power came from her direction and then the light began to fade. Jesse opened his eyes.

The only problem was, this was no longer Sammy. Jesse almost gasped when he saw the familiar vibrant magenta hair, purple suit with glowing yellow gems, and yellow skin. This, was the Admin. She was disguised as Sammy this whole time.

"She's the Admin." Jesse whispered.

"Oh, would you look at that? They finally figured it out." The Admin taunted, rolling her glowing pink eyes. "Of course I am!"

"Sammy… the whole time?"

The Admin burst into another high-pitched laughter, which echoed around the giant room.

"But, I…. no." Jack sobbed.

"Aww, is itty bitty little Jack upset that Sammy was actually the Admin?" She taunted, before bursting into laughter again. "Anyway, I've got something I would like to say to you, Jesse."

The Admin approached Jesse.

"Mind explaining to me why there's a big human sized hole inside the wall of one of my challenges? Hmm?"

"I-" Jesse began, but was unable to find the words to complete his statement.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." The Admin said. "So, we're in an extremely difficult challenge room, and this is where we separate a decent human being, from a CHEATER!"

The Admin approached Jesse. She got so close to Jesse's ear, he could smell her hot breath on him. It smelled of rotten flesh and made him want to puke.

"CHEATERS NEVER PROSPER!" The Admin screamed, almost bursting Jesse's eardrum. "And you're a cheater! That's what's been confirmed to me."

"Ah, excuse me? Admin, ma'am?" Stella waved, stepping in-front of the Admin and Jesse. "I just wanted to say that you have my full support in whatever you're planning to do."

"Oh, really?" The Admin questioned.

"Yes, really. I believe that with my organizational, managerial, and leadership skills, I could be an excellent addition to, ah, whatever your infrastructure is." Stella said.

The Admin thought for a moment, before nodding.

"I'll keep that in mind." The Admin said. "Now, back to you, Jesse."

The Admin approached him again.

"Now, there's something I'd like to reveal. Since you won't be seeing Beacontown ever again, I might as well as give you a hint on the true nature of why I built this place." The Admin revealed. "You see, sitting in your filthy treasure room, is a rather valuable Redstone Heart of mine, which I need to finish off my big project, but with you in the picture, things could get complicated. So I built this place as a distraction, to play with you for a bit, before I remove you from the equation completely."

The Admin got right into Jesse's face, so that the only thing he could see was her glowing pink eyes.

"Now, take one look at the scenery out there, because it cannot help you now."

As the Admin laughed her head off, she raised her arm, and Jesse found himself weightless. He, Jack and Petra flew 50 feet into the air. Looking down, Jesse saw the Admin float up to them.

"Now, I'd like that gauntlet back, thank you very much." The Admin said before, waving her hand. The gauntlet on Jesse's hand disappeared. "And Petra, you will be coming with me, and helping me out."

The Admin placed the gauntlet onto Petra's hand, this time, it was purple. The Admin clapped her hands.

"What are you doing? No!" She pleaded.

And Petra disappeared.

"Petra! Where did she go?" Jesse growled.

"Where she went, is of no concern to a cheater like you." The Admin responded.

"The only cheater I see here, is you." Jesse quipped.

The Admin narrowed her eyes.

"Cute."

She turned around.

"Well, I had fun playing with you, but I'm done now. Now, be a good little boy, and do as you're told from now on. Goodbye."

"NO!" Jesse pleaded.

The Admin laughed before clapping her hands and Jesse felt himself spinning and falling through a void of colors. The last thing he heard before he collapsed was Jack screaming his name.

* * *

Author's Notes: So, it seems Xara's reasons for the challenge was a little bit different to Romeo's. She wanted to get Jesse out of the way and steal the Redstone Heart.

I always felt like Admin Xara's hair would have been just as bright as Romeo's hair, and that it faded during all that time in prison, causing it to look dark.

Like it? Review. Don't like it, look up another story.

More to follow.


	5. Ironguard Detention Facility

Chapter 4 – Ironguard Detention Facility

* * *

These next few chapters might not be my best work. Not only did I run headfirst into a case of Writer's Block, but I may also be crap at naming things. I wanted to make Xara's prison a little bit different from Romeo's Sunshine Institute. So, I came up with a more, appropriate name for the prison.

* * *

(Minecraft: Story Mode and its characters belong to Telltale Games, not me.)

* * *

Jesse almost panicked when he woke up in a completely unknown location. As he took a look around, he realized that he had been sent to a prison of some sort. He slowly got to his feet and noticed that he was wearing a white t-shirt with red suspenders, and orange pants.

"What the heck is this?" He asked to himself. Jesse reached into his pockets, to find his inventory empty. "Uh, where's my stuff?"

Jesse's eyes lay on his gauntlet-less hand.

"The gauntlet!" He exclaimed. "I hope Petra's okay wearing it. I gotta get back, find the Admin. Find my friends!"

As Jesse began to walk forward, he noticed that part of the ground he was standing on was bedrock.

"Bedrock?" Jesse gasped. "The Admin said, 'I won't be seeing Beacontown ever again.'"

Looks like that statement might be true, since nothing can break bedrock. Jesse looked up, and saw that instead of the sky, the entire place was covered by a huge ceiling of bedrock.

"What is this place?"

Jesse approached a wall.

"So, Jesse? How was your day. Oh it was great, met a purple, glow-y… all-powerful crazy person who trapped me in a near-indestructible cage." Jesse said to himself, before facepalming.

Jesse continued on, eventually arriving at a pair of huge gates made out of iron blocks. The words 'Ironguard Detention Facility' was carved into the top of the door frame. Behind the gates, was the top of a giant building, that stretched up, as high as the bedrock ceiling.

The gates suddenly opened, and a tough looking golem with purple glowing lines on it landed behind Jesse. He took off, through the gates, only to land on his back in-front of a bald guy.

"Oh, don't mind him." He said. "He's just here to make sure all inmates of the Ironguard Detention Facility behave themselves."

Bald Guy pulled out a book.

"Let's see, let's see, let's see."

Bald Guy read through a book before stopping on a name.

"Oh, yes. Jesse." He spotted. "Welcome to the Ironguard Detention Facility."

Bald Guy led Jesse through the front door and down a hallway to the left.

"It's a place for the people that the Admin has found troublesome." Bald Guy said. "I'll be your Warden."

"So the Admin created this nuthut, too, huh?" Jesse answered.

"Of course. The Admin is an endless source of building brilliance." The Warden answered.

"There must be some sort of mistake, I don't belong here." Jesse insisted.

"But the Admin sent you here. The Admin doesn't make mistakes, so never accuse her of doing so. Never!" The Warden corrected.

"You know she's not… here right now, right?" Jesse pointed out.

"You never know." The Warden answered. "She can appear anywhere, anytime."

"What about my friends?" Jesse asked. "I need to get back, the Admin mentioned something about being in the final stages of her plan, and she put her gauntlet on one of my friends. I need to get back and stop her."

"That's probably why she sent you down here in the first place; You know too much about her plan. She has done her utmost to keep it secret for as long as possible, and you are in no position to ruin it, not when it is on the very brink of success." The Warden responded.

"Yeah, you have zero idea what you're saying." Jesse quipped.

"Mind that attitude, Jesse. And if your friends are anything like you, they'll be on their way here right next to you, I'm sure."

They stopped right next to the entrance to a cell wing. The sign marked it as 'Cell Block Echo'.

"Now hang on a tick, I have a, another prisoner on my manifest." The Warden said, blocking Jesse. "Male, grizzled beard, hair is described as _majestic_."

Jesse heard a low grunt and looked up on the catwalks in the following cell wing to see Jack's face pop out. He waved at Jesse. Jesse waved back.

"Distract him." Jack mouthed.

"Long, long list of aliases here." The Warden continued.

"Yeah, that's Jack." Jesse distracted.

Immediately, Jack jumped down from the catwalks above, and charged into the Warden knocking him over.

"Augh! Oh, Jesse! Thank goodness I found you! This place…" Jack started.

"I know! Let's get out of here!"

Jesse and Jack ran back down the hallway that the Warden led Jesse through, and they eventually reached the front-doors of the prison, leading them back outside.

"Augh! I can't believe what a mess we're in." Jack growled. "And all because I didn't realize that crazy woman was masquerading as Sammy! Augh! What a mess!"

"Hey, the Admin fooled everyone. Not just you." Jesse said, patting Jack on the back.

"But I should've known. I, should've been better." Jack protested. "And now the Admin has Petra too. I, I don't know how we're going to get out of this one."

"Escaped Inmates! Sound the alarm!" A guard in a watchtower called out. An alarm started blaring.

"Oh, we don't stand a chance without weapons." Jack panicked.

"Then we run!" Jesse answered.

"Where?"

"Wherever they aren't!"

Jesse and Jack took off into the maze surrounding the giant prison building.

"Stop them! Don't let them reach the Burrows!" The Warden's voice cried out.

After dodging two of the purple iron golems, Jack and Jesse raced off into the maze. Eventually, they managed to outrun the two purple iron golems.

"Okay, we've got to figure out where we are." Jesse said as they continued on throughout the maze, which appeared to be endless. "What is that?"

Ahead of them, were purple eyed spiders.

"Whoa!"

Jesse and Jack managed to dodge the spiders, only to see a grey version of zombies with glowing purple eyes. They were wearing prisoner jumpsuits.

"Great, more weird monsters." Jesse exclaimed. "Are those, zombies?"

Jesse and Jack were forced to move after seeing the purple eyed spiders approaching them from behind. Jesse ran along the wall over the heads of the zombies.

"This thing is endless." Jesse panicked, and was more worried to find that Jack was no longer with him. "Jack? Jack?!"

"Jesse? Where are you!?" Jack's voice answered.

Jesse ran back, to see two zombies pulling on both of Jack's arms. He raced towards one of the zombies and punched it really hard in the back of the head. Jack dealt with the zombie that was still holding him.

"Ow! Really wish I had that Gauntlet right about now." Jesse said.

Jesse and Jack turned around and continued on. They ran into a dead-end, with more spiders crawling down from above them.

"Yeah, maybe not this way."

They continued on to see another mob fusion crawling down from above them. It was a fusion of a creeper and a spider, glowing purple like the other mobs they encountered.

"Ah, what are those things?" Jesse gasped. "A spider? A creeper?"

"It's the stuff nightmares are made of!" Jack responded.

"That is unsettling!" Jesse commented as they took off again. They ran into more of the grey zombies.

"Of course, why would there only be one? There's never just one." Jesse groaned.

"Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no." Jesse panicked, and was immediately yanked by the arm into an alcove by Jack." The creepers exploded, creating a small man-sized hole in the obsidian wall. Jesse and Jack raced into it, to find themselves on the other side of the wall.

A ghast noise got their attention, and sure enough, there was a ghast behind them.

"Oh, boy." Jesse whispered as it charged up and released a fireball. "Incoming!"

Jesse and Jack managed to dodge the fireball and continued on before they reached purple colored slimes.

"This is getting bonkers." Jesse said, before he jumped up and bounced over the top of them.

"Nice moves." Jack commented, joining in.

But at the end of the line of purple slimes, were purple Spider-Creepers. One was flashing, and so Jesse did a dive and gave it a huge kick, knocking them all against the wall, causing them to explode. A staircase was made within the wall.

"Look, Jesse!" Jack pointed. "We gotta get to the top of the wall!"

Jesse reached the top of the wall, to see that it was indeed endless, and that Ghasts were floating everywhere. He also saw, to his dismay that they didn't get that far from the giant prison.

"Oh, crud." Jesse groaned.

To his horror, the purple colored golems caught up with them. Seeing nowhere to run, Jesse screamed as the golem grabbed them.

Jesse and Jack were taken back to the prison, where the golem dumped them back outside the gates, where the Warden was waiting.

"Five minutes and already apprehended in an escape attempt? That is just, that is just rude!" The Warden remarked. He pointed to Jack.

"Take this one, to Cell Block Delta." The Warden instructed. He pointed to Jesse. "And bring that one, to my office. Now."

A golem grabbed Jack and pulled him inside while another golem approached Jesse and grabbed him, pulling him towards the Warden's office.

* * *

The Golem led Jesse through more hallways within the prison, until they reached the Warden's office. Jesse took a look around, before he was startled by the Warden's sudden voice.

"Close the door, would you?"

Jesse looked at the lever next to the door where he walked in.

"Do as you're told." The Warden demanded.

"Uh, sure." Jesse said, before flipping the lever.

"Obedient. Good." The Warden said, nodding. "You and your band of misfits may have hope yet."

"Band of misfits?" Jesse repeated.

"Oh! Let me show you." The Warden said, gesturing for Jesse to follow. Jesse looked out of the window to a cell block below, and saw…

"Radar! Nurm!" Jesse exclaimed. He saw Radar and Nurm being dragged into cells by another purple Golem.

"Did you really think the Admin would just let your friends go blabbing the full details of her plan away?" The Warden asked rhetorically. "No. At the Ironguard Detention Facility, there are two types of prisoners. People who anger and annoy the Admin.

The Warden turned around.

"And, then there are the type of people who discover too much about the Admin, and she has to remove them, to make sure they don't go blabbing her secrets away, such as yourself and your punch-happy friends down there." The Warden explained.

As Jesse saw Radar and Nurm disappear, he saw a Purple Golem leading Jack into the same Cell Block.

"Your friend with the glasses is surprisingly feisty for such a skinny guy." The Warden remarked.

Jesse turned around and gave the Warden a glare.

"You think you wanna mess with me and my friends? You think wrong." He spat.

"You mess with me, you mess with MY friend; the Admin. And that's something you definitely don't want." The Warden shot back. "Bring up one of Jesse's friends, would you? Skinny guy? Glasses?"

A golem nodded before exiting the room.

"Funny story, when I first got here, I was actually part of the group you are in. An old friend of mine discovered a compromising secret about the Admin, and she had all of us sent down here." The Warden admitted. "You know, to remove witnesses. We were just a crazy bunch of griefers back then. Simpler times."

The Warden rubbed the top of a TNT block.

"Ah, no, no, this place is filthy! Ah! So disorganized! Making me crazy!" A loud voice screamed, coming from outside the door. The door opened to reveal Radar, who ran straight to Jesse upon seeing him.

"Jesse! Oh, I'm so glad you're okay!" Radar exclaimed. "I was so, ack! I was so worried!"

"Glad I'm okay? I'm just relieved that you're okay!" Jesse said.

"Aw, you were worried about me?"

Jesse nodded.

The Warden flipped a lever, to reveal another machine.

"Meet '_The Iron Breathtaker.'_" The Warden introduced. "Iron bars to hold the victim in place below, sticky piston above to shove an iron block down over their head."

Radar gasped in horror as a golem grabbed him and placed him inside.

"Oh, guuuulp-nng-" Radar panicked.

"Now, I said before that you could follow in my footsteps. That could start now." The Warden said, gesturing towards a guard uniform. "Ready to improve that pesky bad behavior of yours and join the good guys? Work for me as a guard and help bring order to these poor, chaotic individuals."

"Don't do it, Jesse." Radar pleaded.

The Warden responded by flipping a lever, placing the Iron Block over Radar's head. Jesse could hear him suffocating.

"What's it gonna be?" The Warden asked.

Radar suffocating was too much for Jesse to handle, and Jesse gave in.

"Okay, I'll do it. Just stop." Jesse pleaded.

"Aw, that's so great to hear." The Warden said, flipping the lever and releasing the Iron Block. Radar leaned over and caught his breath.

"I, that was, so dark." Radar gasped.

"Easy, easy there. 'Radar' was it? You just had quite the harrowing experience." The Warden remarked. "But don't worry. Our newest guard will be walking you out."

Jesse gave Radar a sad look as he finished putting the guard outfit on.

"Jesse, no." Radar said. "I don't know how much more of this I can take."

Radar launched into a coughing fit, prompting the Warden to tap him on the back.

"Don't look at me like that! I did this for you, Radar." Jesse pointed out. "I'm trying to protect you!"

"But, no."

"Well, well, well. Jesse, Jesse, Jesse." A familiar unpleasant voice started speaking. Jesse looked over and saw Stella walking in, wearing the same uniform as himself.

"Stella? What, how?" Jesse stammered.

"While I appreciate you letting me out of that iron cell, I can't let that disrupt the new, professional relationship we have now, okay? I'm sure you understand." Stella said. "I knew a day of reckoning would come for my rival?"

"Oh, you two know each other?" The Warden asked.

"Oh yes. Our bitter rivalry goes way back." Stella answered.

"This place really suits you, Stella." Jesse said. "It's cruel, uncomfortable and nobody likes it!"

"Ooh, you're letting your jealousy get the better of you, Jesse. Pity." Stella responded. "Watch out for this one, Warden. Jesse plus anything equals trouble."

Stella approached Jesse.

"Now, come on Jesse, no one wants a sour rival. Be like me! I'm a shining example of success. I've barely arrived and I'm already bossing you around. Isn't it grand? Let's go, Randall."

"IT'S RADAR!" Radar screamed.

"Uh, that's what I said." Stella responded coolly.

The Warden grabbed Jesse's hand.

"Stella's right." He said. "Commitment and loyalty to the Admin's cause are cornerstones around here. Continuing to rebel against the Admin isn't going to get you very far in this place. So maybe readjust your concerns."

"If the Admin really doesn't want me to interfere, then I will stay out of her way." Jesse lied.

"Excellent. Just what I needed to hear." The Warden responded.

Jesse sighed.

"What are you hiding, Warden?"

"Not every prisoner here wears orange, Jesse." The Warden said.

"Let's go, rival." Stella called out.

"That's right." The Warden agreed. "Go along, Jesse! To Cell Block Delta!"

"Exactly what I was going to suggest! I'll have your job before you know it, Warden." Stella responded.

"Be careful what you wish for, Stella." The Warden said as Jesse left. The doors snapped shut behind them.

* * *

Author's Notes: I like to think that Xara wouldn't be quite as restrictive about prison terms such as 'Guards' and 'Prison' as Romeo would be.

And yes, I've got an explanation fully worked out in my head for why Xara turned evil in this story. You'll find out soon enough.

Not much else to say here.

Like it? Review. Don't like it, look up something else.

More to follow.


	6. Delta and Charlie

Chapter 5 – Delta and Charlie

* * *

(Minecraft: Story Mode and its characters belong to Telltale Games, not me.)

* * *

Stella, Radar and Jesse continued on until they reached a cell block, which Jesse saw was named 'Cell Block Delta'.

Jesse saw that Jack and Nurm had already been placed into cells within the cell block, and he gave Radar an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry, Radar." Jesse whispered as he gestured for Radar to get into a vacant cell. Jesse gave Radar a reassuring look as the iron bars automatically closed.

"Ta ta, Jesse." Stella said. "I'll be at my post supervising a more impressive cell block. Don't be too jealous. Or do, I wouldn't blame you."

Stella walked back through the exit and disappeared around the corner. Jesse shrugged before taking his post.

The next few hours were uneventful, and Jesse used this time to think. Funny, how only a few hours ago, he had defeated a huge colossus, and was about to start on the repairs to Beacontown when the Admin came out of nowhere and forced him on this entire quest. And here Jesse was, supervising a cell block of a high security prison built by the very Admin that Jesse was quarreling with.

Speaking of the Admin, Jesse couldn't help but wonder just what the Admin was doing that required her to remove Jesse from Beacontown. Jesse knew that it was nothing good, and he had a strong feeling that it had something to do with Beacontown and the Redstone Heart, hence why she wanted him out of the way. Jesse felt a burst of anger explode inside him upon knowing that there was quite possibly nothing he could do to stop her. She was an omnipotent god, while he was just a normal human, like everybody else.

Jesse hoped that one of the prisoners in this place knew how to escape, because there was no way in hell that he would be expected to spend the remainder of his life down here. All those scared people in Beacontown were counting on him. Jesse gazed over towards the window which revealed the Warden's office above them. Jesse saw that the Warden was sitting down and doing paperwork.

It wasn't until Jesse heard Radar groaning in the cell, that he finally moved from his position to ask what was going on.

"You okay, Radar?" Jesse asked.

"Wish I was. I need something to eat, get my strength back." Radar answered.

Jesse took a look around and spotted a dark-skinned guard on the other side of the Cell Block, eating a cookie.

"Well, sit tight Radar. I'm gonna go see what I can do." Jesse said before walking towards the dark-skinned guard. "Uh, hello?"

The guard paused and looked up at Jesse.

"Listen, you don't perhaps have any more of those cookies, do you?" Jesse asked.

"Why do you ask?" The guard questioned.

Jesse knew that he couldn't just tell the guard that Radar needed some food, so he improvised.

"When I first got here, I wasn't able to get any food." Jesse explained.

The guard sighed.

"Okay, since you're new here, I'll explain. The guards are supposed to get their food from food supply chests before they go on duty to patrol each cell block. It just so happens that I have one more cookie to spare."

He reached into his pocket and passed it to Jesse.

"Perfect! Thanks." Jesse responded. "Out of curiosity, do the prisoners get food at all?"

"Oh, yeah. But only at designated times of the day. They just had their last food break for the day an hour ago." The guard said.

Yeah, screw that. Jesse turned around and slowly approached Radar's cell, making sure to not act suspicious. Looking behind him to make sure the guard wasn't looking, Jesse quickly pulled out his cookie and handed it to Radar through the iron bars. But Radar wasn't the only one who saw what Jesse was doing. As Radar took the cookie and ate it, Jesse saw a dark-skinned prisoner, with a large mole on his face, glaring at him with contempt.

As Jesse turned around to walk back to his spot, he heard the sound of a tool being unsheathed. He turned around and saw that the prisoner was mining through the iron bars with a stone pickaxe.

"THAT'S IT!" He growled. "I'VE BEEN DOWN HERE FOR TOO LONG! I CAN'T STAND ANOTHER SECOND!"

The prisoner unsheathed a wooden sword and approached Jesse.

"Nothin' personal. I'm just mega, mega hungry." He said, before aiming a blow at Jesse. Jesse responded by snatching the sword out of the prisoner's hand with ease.

"Ha, gimme that!"

"I'm so sorry, so sorry! I'm just so hungry!" The prisoner immediately pleaded, falling to the ground.

"Uh. Ahem! Hello? What's going on in here?" The Warden's voice asked. Jesse looked up and saw that the Warden had entered the Cell Block, accompanied by a purple glowing prison Golem.

Jesse dropped the sword in response.

"Jesse, I expect far better from my guards than this." The Warden scolded. "And what exactly is a weapon doing down here? You should know that weapons are strictly forbidden at the Ironguard Detention Facility. And why is that prisoner out of his cell?!"

"That guy mined his way out of his cell and attacked me with it." Jesse responded.

"Hmm, what refreshing honesty."

"More like what a refreshing LIE you mean, you rotten snitch!" The prisoner snarled.

"Golems, search his cell." The Warden instructed.

The prison golem gave a nod, before walking through the iron bars and opening a chest. He pulled out a whole load of items, including an extra sword, some food and a flint and steel. The Warden was shaking in rage upon seeing just those items, but the Golem was still picking items out.

"How much contraband is in there?" The Warden exclaimed upon noticing the increasingly large pile of forbidden items. At last, the Golem finally finished pulling everything out. The Warden stepped in and collected everything, before turning around and giving the prisoner a look of utter disgust.

"You are going, not to Cell Block Charlie, but to Cell Block Bravo." The Warden declared. "Take him away!"

The golem grabbed the prisoner and carried him away, kicking and screaming. The Warden turned towards Jesse.

"Congratulations, Jesse. You just uncovered more contraband in one sweep than I have ever seen before. Perhaps Cell Block Delta was a too easy challenge for you. You, Jesse, are being promoted to Cell Block Charlie."

Jesse gave Radar, Jack and Nurm a sad look, before leaving Cell Block Delta.

* * *

On his way to Cell Block Charlie, Jesse made a quick stop to grab some food supplies. After that, Jesse entered Cell Block Charlie. It looked very similar to Cell Block Delta, only the prisoners looked a little bit meaner, and instead of Iron Bars, they had Iron Doors, with a control room at the very top of the Cell Block.

Just as the Warden was turning around to leave, a siren blared through the prison.

"ESCAPED INMATE! REPEAT! ESCAPED INMATE!" A voice announced over the jukebox intercom.

"Ugh!" The Warden grumbled, turning around only to bump into two guards. "Who is it this time?"

The guard on the left whispered something into the Warden's ear.

"WHAT?!" The Warden exploded. "HOW DID HE GET OUT!? ARGH! The Admin's going to have my head if I let him get away! You two, activate Code Romeo!"

The two guards nodded before running off. The Warden turned to Jesse.

"Jesse, stay here and guard the cell block!"

The Warden sprinted from the Cell Block. Jesse decided to take his position and watch over the cellblock. Doing his best to ignore the blazing siren, which was starting to give him a headache.

Jesse breathed a sigh of relief when the siren finally stopped. Now he could actually hear himself think.

Who was this prisoner that had escaped? And why was the Admin so insistent in keeping him locked up in here? Jesse really wanted to find out more.

Speaking of the Admin, Jesse can't help but worry about the people on the surface. He didn't have a clue what the Admin was trying to do, but he knew that nothing good was going to come of it. He hoped Lukas managed to get away and warn Beacontown of Jesse's current predicament.

If this prisoner knew how to escape, then Jesse had to find someway to be able to get closer to him. To start off with, Jesse needed to find out more about him.

Right on cue, the two guards that had run off before returned. Jesse quickly approached one of them.

"Who was that prisoner that escaped before?" Jesse inquired.

"Are you talking about that guy locked up in Cell Block Romeo?" The guard questioned.

"_Cell Block Romeo?_" Jesse repeated.

"What, you don't know?"

"I'm actually kind of new here." Jesse admitted.

"Right, well all you need to know about Cell Block Romeo, is that it was specifically built to hold this very special infamous prisoner. Both the Warden and the Admin get really finnicky if you so much as hint about him, so they don't really talk about him." The guard explained. "The only detail that people know is that his name was Romeo, and that the Cell Block was named after him."

"You don't say." Jesse responded.

"Don't go getting any bright ideas though. They're not going to let a newbie like you get within 100 feet of Cell Block Romeo. Only the Admin, the Warden and the top-level guards are allowed to even step foot inside the Cell Block. Besides, why would you even want to see Romeo anyway? He hates guards with a burning passion. You wouldn't survive two seconds down there."

"Yeah, when you put it that way. It does sound kind of silly." Jesse played along.

"_Kind of?_ Insanity is what it is!" The guard exclaimed. "Now, how about we get back to work?"

Jesse nodded before walking back to his spot.

So, what he Jesse able to learn, was that the name of the Prisoner was Romeo, and that the Admin really seems to want to keep him locked up down here. But Jesse still felt like there was a piece missing. Why was Romeo locked up down here in the first place? What does Romeo know about the Admin, and does he know the way through that maze outside?

No matter what it takes, Jesse needed to get to Cell Block Romeo. And that started, by continuing to be promoted. Jesse now had a strong motivation to keep showing his loyalty to the Warden.

Now, how to get promoted higher? That, Jesse needed to figure out.

Jesse took a look around, and saw a beefy red-skinned guy, with horns and two giant bottom teeth, which gave him an underbite. He definitely seemed shady to Jesse, perhaps Jesse could find something to pin him on?

Seeing that he and the two guards were the only ones in the cell block, Jesse waited until the guards were distracted before approaching the red-skinned guy's cell. He was currently asleep at the moment. Since Jesse was a guard, he had the ability to open and close cells as he pleased. He opened the cell, and slipped inside, closing the cell door behind him.

Walking very slowly as to not disturb the red-skinned guy, Jesse took a look at the painting on the wall. It seemed out of place. Jesse slowly approached it, and picked at it, eventually removing it. Jesse saw that behind it were a bunch of secret buttons. Nice! Now he's definitely onto something.

Looking behind him, Jesse saw that one part of the back wall seemed different from the other parts of the cell. The wool on it seemed a little bit beaten up. Jesse grabbed the pickaxe that he had grabbed from the chest earlier on while the Warden was escorting him, and slowly mined it open. Mining wool felt different to mining stone, but Jesse eventually got it open.

The red-skinned guy slowly moved around but appeared to have not awoken. Jesse breathed a sigh of relief, before heading into the secret room.

Behind a set of fence posts, Jesse saw that there was a mooshroom?

"A… mooshroom? What the heck are you doing in here?" Jesse asked out-loud.

"Soundin' to me like I could ask ya the same question." A voice growled in response.

Jesse slowly turned around, to find the red-skinned dude standing behind him. He did not look happy.

"Mind explainin' what yer doin' in my most private of spaces? Visitors ain't welcome. And you are most definitely a visitor!"

"Easy there, big guy." Jesse responded. "No need to get steamed."

"My room, my rules, short stack. If you hadn't noticed, you left the hole open. Now get outta my cell before you regret gettin' in it!"

The mooshroom mooed.

"Did I hear mooing?!" A familiar voice called out.

"Oh, come on!" Red-skin exclaimed.

And then suddenly the Warden was there, flanked by two guards. Jesse did not understand how he managed to move around the prison so fast.

"Excellent work, my newest guard!" The Warden appraised, before turning towards a guard to his left. "You see, this is how you get promoted. Work your way up!"

A guard grabbed red-skin and held him back while the Warden escorted the mooshroom out of the cell.

"But first, to maintain order. This creature cannot be allowed to undo the strict order of lunch time within the Ironguard Detention Facility."

The Warden pulled out a set of shears and offered it to Jesse.

"Shear it, would you Jesse?" The Warden requested.

"But then it'll be-"

"An ordinary cow, yes. Y'know, bringing order to the chaos that this creature may have already caused. I thought that was obvious."

"What?! No!" Red-skin cried.

"Not liking your hesitation here, Jesse."

"You can't! You won't!" Red-skin pleaded.

"You do want to be promoted, don't you?"

"I'm beggin' ya!"

Jesse didn't want to do it, but he must maintain his cover.

"Fine, I'll do it!"

Jesse took the shears and approached the mooshroom. It sniffed the shears, before slowly resigning itself to its fate and stood still.

"I, I can't watch." Red-skin said, closing his eyes.

Jesse slowly opened up the shears and sheared the mooshroom, turning it into an ordinary cow. The guards let red-skin go. He slowly approached the cow.

"Geoff? Geoff. You still recognize me, right buddy? Geoff! GEOFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!" Red-skin screamed, before bursting into tears.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" The Warden finally said. "I gotta say, Jesse. With the way how you keep picking out all of this contraband, I'm starting to think that I seriously underestimated you. In fact, I think that you can skip directly to the highest security level cell block. Cell Block Alpha!"

Stella suddenly appeared behind the Warden.

"I get to be your boss now, Jesse. Aren't you the luckiest guard of all?" Stella exclaimed.

Jesse's mood changed faster than a creeper confronted with ocelots. He now has to work with this arrogant woman?

"Now, get a move on. We don't have all day."

Jesse followed Stella out of Cell Block Charlie and towards Cell Block Alpha.

* * *

Author's Notes: And that's that.

I may have rushed this chapter a little bit.

Like it? Review. Don't like it, look up another story.

More to follow.


	7. The Riot

Chapter 6 – The Riot

* * *

(Minecraft: Story Mode and its characters belong to Telltale Games, not me.)

* * *

As Jesse and Stella entered Cell Block Alpha, Jesse saw that it looked a lot different to Cell Block Echo, Delta and Charlie.

For one, they now used iron doors instead of iron bars to keep the prisoners locked in the cells, and secondly, the layout of the entire cell block was dramatically different. They were on top of a huge catwalk going across the entire cell block. Downstairs, were the cells while on the left side of the catwalks was Stella's office, and on the right side was a place that Jesse felt that he had to go, the control room.

"Welcome to Cell Block Alpha, Jesse!" Stella exclaimed. "This is the place, where you will find some of the toughest, and most disgusting prisoners that are kept here."

"Wow, this place is definitely tight on security." Jesse commented, looking at each of the iron doors on the cells.

"Ah, well, yeah. Of course. Of course it is, why wouldn't it be, with all these prisoners being locked up here." Stella responded. "Anyway, I suppose now that we're colleagues and all, I shouldn't leave you in the dark. Our job is to supervise these prisoners, and make sure that they don't try anything. Unlike the other cell blocks, prisoners here are to remain locked up twenty-four seven. Even you couldn't mess this up. Ehh, maybe I should knock on wood."

"Makes sense. We are guards after all." Jesse said.

"That's the spirit!" Stella responded. "I may have the superior outfit, general demeanor, hairstyle and sense of modesty, but, yes, we're both still guards!"

Jesse had no idea what Stella was going on about. They were wearing the exact same uniform.

"This may not be my dream destination, but at least I'm better off than the guy locked up in Cell Block Romeo." Stella said.

"'Cell Block Romeo'?" Jesse questioned, feigning ignorance.

"Yes. You must've heard that alarm before. He broke out, but they managed to recapture him. Cell Block Romeo was specifically built for one very special prisoner, named Romeo, who the Cell Block was named after." Stella explained. "Unfortunately, that is all we are allowed to know about him. And don't get any ideas, though. Only the Warden and his top-ranking guards are allowed into Cell Block Romeo."

"Now, if you'll excuse me. Lluna and I are off to prove why we're the best associates."

Jesse had only been watching over the cell block for about an hour, when suddenly it was time for him to step down and take a rest for the night.

Jesse made his way back to the guard's lounge, where he entered his dorm, lay down on the bed and thought over some things.

He was so close, he could feel it. If he could find a way into Cell Block Romeo and talk to this Romeo person, they could help each other escape. But there was a problem. There was no way that Jesse was going to get remotely close to Romeo without the Warden or the Admin knowing about it. That's when he got an idea. He needed a distraction.

That brought his mind back to that control room he saw earlier. Perhaps he could convince Stella to deliberately leave it open, and then Jesse could use it to open every single cell block within the building. After all, what better way to cause a distraction than a riot, right?

Jesse was so excited that he was unable to get to sleep, and he tossed and turned, until a guard came in and told him that it was time to go back on duty. Jesse grabbed a few food items from the chest, before re-entering Cell Block Alpha.

He found Stella in her office, now was his chance to try and convince Stella to help him.

"Glad to see you haven't been mingling with the guests." Stella greeted.

"Yeah, about that. I need your help." Jesse said. "It's got something to do with the control room, up there."

"And why, exactly are you interested in that?" Stella asked. "Not that I, y'know, really care. It's probably stupid."

"There's something up there that I need to quickly grab." Jesse made up on the spot.

"You haven't been up there yet, why would you need to grab something?" Stella responded. "Not helping you here. No, not risking angering the Admin. I had to really prove myself to get this gig as it is. Not giving it up for you."

"But she's why you're down here! Come on!"

"And she is who will help lift me back out again once I finish helping her, run this… horrible… smelly… mud pit."

That got Jesse's attention.

"Maybe you make some good points, but not enough of them. I have a place here. Respect, y'know, and power, and yeah, the works!" Stella continued. "It's actually very prestigious. Many, many people would love to have this position."

"Yeah, but what about Champion City? You're gonna abandon them?" Jesse pointed out.

"Absolutely not! They'll be, fine! They will be just, oh, hah, who am I kidding? I have done so much for them in the past, I mean they can barely make bread without me supervising."

Stella sighed.

"Okay, look, maybe this isn't exactly my dream destination." Stella said, before leaning close to Jesse. "This place is horrible, and I am worried I will never get the smell out of my hair."

Stella handed a lever to Jesse.

"Here's the lever to get yourself inside the control room. But you need to get me out of here. I know we've had our issues. But I also know that you're a, hero or whatever. That's not… too much, right?"

Jesse sighed.

"Sure, Stella, I'd be happy to have you."

Stella's eyes widened in glee.

"If you're happy, I'm happy."

Jesse slowly turned around and moved to leave, before suddenly remembering something.

"Oh, and Stella. I suggest you lay low for the time being. Things are about to get a little… hectic."

"Do whatever you need to do, Jesse." Stella responded.

Jesse nodded before leaving Stella's office. He made sure that nobody was paying attention before racing up the catwalks towards the control room. He planted the lever next to the door and flipped it, opening it up. Jesse saw a pressure place on the other side of the door. He held his feet down on it, keeping the door open while he snatched the lever back. Once Jesse fully entered the room, the door snapped shut.

Jesse approached the console, where he saw that it could do a whole lot of stuff. No wonder this room was locked up tight. Although some more security than an iron door could have sufficed. The first thing he did with it was find a path to Cell Block Romeo, which he did. He saw that the nearest entrance was directly through the room he was in. He saw a whole bunch of other hallways, which led to Echo, Delta, Charlie and Bravo.

Now, onto the cell block doors. He saw that not only could he control Cell Block Alpha, but he could control the other four cell blocks, which was good. Jesse took a deep breath.

"Here goes nothing."

Jesse flipped a few levers and opened up every single door within Cell Block Alpha. Within seconds, prisoners began swarming the Cell Block. He then opened up every single door within the other Cell Blocks. He left the door leading to Cell Block Romeo closed on purpose, and hid inside a chest within the room, knowing that the Warden will be along, wondering what's going on.

Within two minutes, Jesse wasn't disappointed, for the Warden had shown up, with a few guards on his tail.

"Damn! Someone's opened up every single cell within the prison." The Warden exclaimed. "At least they didn't touch Cell Block Romeo at least. Spread out and round up every guard you can until you can find out who started this riot!"

The guards did a salute gesture before leaving the room, the Warden following them out.

Jesse slowly moved from his hiding place, and quickly opened up Cell Block Romeo. As he began to sprint into the hallway, a wall of slime blocks suddenly appeared in-front of him.

Jesse bounced off and landed on his back, and he found himself staring into the glowing pink eyes of the Admin. She looked furious.

"Going somewhere, Jesse?" She taunted, before clapping her hands. Jesse suddenly felt himself land on the floor of Cell Block Delta, the Admin floating 20 feet above him. "The Warden told me that you were zooming up the ranks, and now here you were, attempting to get into a place that you most definitely aren't supposed to be. Why am I not surprised? After all, you did try to cheat back at my challenges."

Jesse remained silent.

"Lost for words? Yeah, you should be, you little sabotage!"

The Admin clapped her hands, and the Warden appeared underneath her. He turned around and gasped upon seeing her, dropping the cake he was eating.

"Ah! Admin, ma'am."

"What are you doing? Just what the hell are you doing?" The Admin snapped. "There's a riot going on here and you're eating cake?!"

"S-sorry. I tend to eat a lot when I'm nervous!" The Warden admitted.

"And while you're sitting there, stuffing your face, I caught the little saboteur who started this little riot. Want to see who it is?"

The Admin gestured towards Jesse.

"Jesse!? Y-you, you were my greatest hope! You were moving through the ranks, and now you've ruined me." The Warden said, in a betrayed voice. "I thought you were following in my footsteps, trying to reform. Was that, all lies?"

"Yeah, sorry about that Warden. But you kind of work for a terrible person." Jesse said.

"Ugh! You're standing there. You're stuffing your face, and most importantly of all, you're useless! What are you doing?"

"Sorry, Admin."

"Oh, you will be." The Admin said, before raising her hands. The Warden floated into the air, glowing white before dropping to the floor again, now wearing prison clothes. "AND THAT GOES FOR EVERY SINGLE GUARD IN THIS PLACE, ESPECIALLY YOU! JESSE!"

As Jesse stared into the Admin's glowing pink eyes, he saw that something about them seemed off. It was really hard to notice, especially with them glowing, but something about them told Jesse that the Admin wasn't 100% fully present in the conversation, and that something more sinister may be happening, something the Admin isn't letting on.

The Admin raised her hand, and Jesse found himself floating up, alongside the Warden. Immediately, a platform appeared underneath them, and the Admin released her hold on them.

"So, you want to play games, huh? All right then, let's play." She said, before giving a sinister chuckle. She clapped her hands, and Petra appeared opposite Jesse. She was still wearing the same armor as before, alongside the purple colored gauntlet. Looking into her eyes, Jesse saw that she had a blank expression, and she was standing there in a way that's very unlike her.

"Pull out your sword, and attack Jesse." The Admin instructed. Petra immediately complied and pulled out her Golden Sword. That's when it hit Jesse. Petra was being mind controlled by the Admin. The Admin waved her hand, and a Diamond Sword appeared in Jesse's hand.

"And you, will attack Petra."

The Admin shifted her attention to the Warden.

"Open your mouth!" The Admin demanded, before a spawning a whole cake. The Warden hesitantly opened his mouth, and the Admin used her powers to shove the cake into his mouth.

"They're paying for it, you eat it!" The Admin said, before giving another chuckle. "Ready?! Fight!" (1)

Without warning, Petra immediately charged towards Jesse, and he only had time to quickly grab his sword and block her attack.

"Serious ouch!" Jesse gasped, before managing to overpower Petra, and knocking her back with his sword.

Petra staggered back for a moment, before recollecting herself and charging towards Jesse again.

"Petra, snap out of it! It's me, Jesse." Jesse pleaded, to no avail while struggling to hold her off with his sword again.

Petra kicked Jesse to the floor and raised her sword. Jesse immediately reacted by rolling out of the path of her sword. He looked up at the Admin and saw an expression of malicious glee on her face. Anger rose up inside him. How dare she use his friend against him like this? He pulled out his sword, quickly got up, side-stepped Petra and charged towards the Admin.

An expression of surprise overcame her face for a moment, before being replaced with a glare. She stuck out her left hand, stopping Jesse in his tracks. The sword Jesse was holding disappeared into white smoke, and he rose up into the air again. The Admin immediately burst into her high-pitched maniacal laughter, which echoed around Cell Block Alpha.

"FOOL!" She screamed. "You seriously think a measly sword is going to hurt me? That is both extremely hilarious, and utterly stupid!"

The Admin burst into laughter again. The Admin waved her hand, causing Petra, the cake and the platform to disappear. The Admin, the Warden and Jesse began to float down to the ground.

"Besides, you're too late! The world has already been made useful, and nothing you can do down here will be able to change that. So carry on with your pointless rioting. It's not like I care anymore what happens to this place. It can burn to the ground for all I care."

"What about Romeo? What about all of us?" The Warden pleaded.

"The Detention Facility is still buried underneath a bedrock layer, which means it's still practically inescapable. So what do I care? I'm leaving, I've got better things to be doing than dancing around with you worthless fools all day long."

"Do you even listen to yourself when you talk?" Jesse asked. "That made zero sense."

"To you maybe, but I really couldn't care less about what you think."

The Admin shifted her attention to Stella, who had just appeared out of her office.

"And you, are you coming with?" The Admin asked.

Stella gave a nervous expression, before slowly nodding her head. Both she and Lluna began to float towards the Admin.

"I've got your back, Jesse. Trust me. Do whatever it takes." Stella whispered. "Coming, darling Admin!"

The Admin floated towards Jesse, stopping a few inches away from his face.

"Stella is just the beginning. Your other friends will all be made useful to my cause, too. Lukas, Axel, Olivia, Petra, all of them. Don't worry about Beacontown, they will be just fine."

Jesse and the Warden felt themselves fall to the ground.

The Admin gave one last chuckle, before disappearing with Stella and Lluna, leaving behind purple Ender Particles which slowly faded.

The Warden turned around to face Jesse.

"What have you done?" He growled. "I trusted you! I honestly thought we had something there!"

"Get out of the way!" Jesse spat, pushing the Warden aside. "I don't have time for you!"

Jesse quickly rushed back up the catwalks towards the control room. He needed to get to Cell Block Romeo, and soon.

* * *

Author's Notes: Well, that's that.

(1) That was a reference to Full Metal Jacket where Hartman found a Jelly Doughnut and forced Private Pyle to eat it while the others did push-ups.

Like it? Review. Don't like it, look up another story.

More to Follow.


	8. Romeo

Chapter 7 – Romeo

* * *

(Minecraft: Story Mode and its characters belong to Telltale Games, not me.)

* * *

The hallway down to Cell Block Romeo went on for much longer than Jesse expected, but at last, he reached Cell Block Romeo.

He was at the very top of a very tall room, with a long catwalk that spiraled around the middle tower. Jesse could see that they did not mess around with security in this room. It had its own Control Room and the bottom of the tower was surrounded by lava. In short, it made Cell Block Alpha look as though it was the lowest security Cell Block in the prison.

Jesse expected guards everywhere in the tall room, but there was not a single soul in sight from where he was standing. Of course, they were probably all sent out to deal with the riot that Jesse had caused. Jesse slowly started climbing down the long winding staircase.

At last, Jesse reached the bottom of the staircase, and he saw that at the bottom of the tower, was a double-roomed cell. The first door had a lever which locked it from the outside, which Jesse was able to open easily. Stepping inside, Jesse saw that the room he was in contained things such as a desk and some other useless items. He saw a window, which peered in to the second part of the cell, which was blocked off by another iron door. Jesse walked up to the window.

Jesse saw that the second room was empty, save for a bed, which had someone sleeping in it. The figure was facing away from Jesse, but he saw that the figure was wearing an orange prisoner jumpsuit and had faded red hair. Jesse tapped his right knuckle on the window, which startled the prisoner awake.

"Gah!" The prisoner screamed. He bolted upright and turned towards Jesse. Looking closely, Jesse saw that the prisoner had pale skin, and a faded red goatee. The prisoner saw Jesse's guard uniform and placed a scowl on his face.

"Ugh! What's it take to let someone sleep around here!?" The prisoner snapped in a British voice. Jesse assumed that this was Romeo.

"Hi, I'm Jesse. You must be Romeo." Jesse introduced.

"I do not know what your game is here, but I am not interested in it." Romeo responded. "Haven't you got a riot to go contain or something? Just do anything other than just stand there and continue to bother me."

"Actually, I started that riot." Jesse admitted.

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah. I started that riot as a distraction, so I could come down here to talk to you." Jesse said. "People upstairs say that you know something about the Admin, and that you're supposed to know how to get out of here."

"Well, I suppose you've just placed your job at risk for nothing, because what I know about this place and about her is of no business to a guard like you." Romeo stated. "Now, do me favor, and get lost!"

Okay, this isn't working. Time for a more direct approach.

"The Admin is running around in my world, doing horrible stuff to my friends and my town. It probably means nothing to you, but I remember that she was planning to use an item known as the Redstone Heart to do it."

Romeo's head suddenly perked up.

"I need to get out of here and stop her. Please, Romeo. I need your help. You may be the only chance I have to stop the Admin."

"You can stop right there. You had me sold when you mentioned the Redstone Heart." Romeo said, turning around to face Jesse properly.

"Wait, you know about the Redstone Heart?" Jesse inquired.

"Of course. Xara was the one who created it." Romeo answered.

"Xara?"

"That's the Admin's real name." Romeo explained. "No wonder you're down here if you know about the Redstone Heart. Xara always did her best to remove anyone who knew too much about it."

"So, are you willing to help me escape now?" Jesse asked.

"Of course! If Xara's finally got her hands back on the Redstone Heart, that could spell disaster for us all. And like you said, I _am_ the only chance you have. I will help you escape, under one condition."

"What is that?"

"You, help me settle my score with Xara." Romeo said.

"You got a deal." Jesse said.

"Fantastic! But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We need to find some way to escape in a way that won't alert the Warden until it's too late."

"Actually, there is no more Warden. The Admin fired him." Jesse relayed.

"You're joking, right?"

"Nope."

"That's brilliant! We won't have any trouble escaping now!" Romeo exclaimed. "I believe there was some sort of control room up at the top. Go up there and see if you can use it to open my cell."

"On it."

Jesse turned around and sped up the stairs towards the Control Room of Cell Block Romeo. So, it seems he managed to get Romeo on his side, which was a step in the right direction. Now, it's time to let him out of his cell, and escape.

Jesse got to the Control Room, and with a flip of a lever, he opened up Romeo's Cell. Immediately, he saw Romeo race out, and they rendezvoused at the top of the stairs.

"Oh, and before we leave. Some of my friends were locked up in here as well." Jesse said. "We'll need to get them first."

Romeo nodded.

"The more, the merrier." Romeo said. "This way."

Romeo led Jesse back through Cell Block Alpha, and they raced their way back through towards Cell Block Delta. On the way, Jesse saw that the riot had really taken off. Eventually, they reached Cell Block Delta, where they saw Radar, Jack and Nurm gathered together.

"Jesse!" Radar called out.

"Radar! Jack!" Jesse exclaimed.

"Glad to see you're okay." Jack said. "And who's this guy?"

"Ah yes. Guys, this is Romeo. Romeo, the guys." Jesse introduced.

Romeo and Jack shook hands.

"Romeo is going to help us get out of here." Jesse explained.

"Okay! Uh, great!" Jack responded.

A bunch of guards raced past them.

"Run for your lives!" A guard screamed.

"The prisoners have escaped their cells!" A second guard added.

"The Warden's been fired!"

Two prisoners were on their tail, including the guy from before who had the chest full of contraband.

"When I find that Warden, I'm gonna make him pay for what he put me through!"

"Yipes. Wouldn't wanna be the Warden right now. Every prisoner in this place wants to tear him to pieces." Jack remarked. "He better watch his back, and his front, and his side. Yeah, lots of watching in his future."

"It's what he deserves. I won't be losing any sleep over it." Jesse said.

"I wonder what the Warden will lose when the prisoners find him." Jack continued.

"Probably a lot." Romeo added.

As they continued on throughout the prison, they saw a few prisoners race out of a storage room. Taking a look, Jesse saw that the storage room contained weapons.

"Let's see if they left us any weapons." Jesse said.

"Definitely would be nice to be able to defend ourselves." Romeo agreed.

Jesse approached two swords. One was a diamond sword, which will last longer while the other was an iron sword which was enchanted with Sharpness.

"I could take the enchanted iron sword, or the diamond sword with no enchantment." Jesse said to himself. "The diamond sword will last longer, but the iron sword is enchanted with Sharpness. Not bad. Hmmm."

Jesse chose the enchanted sword and gave it a swing.

"Okay, definitely feeling better with a sword in my hand again."

"Agreed." Jack agreed.

Romeo took the diamond sword with no enchantment and a bow along with a stack of various tipped arrows. Jack picked up a regular iron sword while Radar came out with a shield. Jesse and the others stared at him.

"What? It's versatile." Radar defended.

Nurm jumped down with a dual set of iron axes, startling Radar.

"Actually, not a bad look." Jack said.

"Looking good, gang. Now let's-"

"You jerks better not have taken all the cool weapons before I got to dig through 'em!" A familiar voice growled. It was the red-skinned guy from before, and he looked none too pleased to them.

"Friends reunited! It's a prison miracle." Radar exclaimed. "Even if Geoff is a little… uh, completely different."

Red-skin approached Jesse.

"I oughta pound you to pulp for what you've done to Geoffy-Poo!" Red-skin threatened. "INCOMING FACE PUNCH!"

Jesse moved to duck the blow, but the blow was blocked by Romeo's diamond sword.

"Look, idiot. I don't care what Jesse did to your precious cow, but you're holding us up!" Romeo snapped. "Help us or fuck off!"

Red-skin's entire demeanour changed at once. He was now backing away in fear.

"R-Romeo? Oh jeez, I don't want no trouble, I'm outta here!" Red-skin declared. "Come along, Geoffy!"

Red-skin and Geoff sprinted from the room.

"That was frighteningly effective." Jesse commented.

Romeo responded with a chuckle.

"Let's go!" Romeo commanded, gesturing for the group to follow him.

Romeo led them straight to the front entrance of the prison. Jesse took a look around and saw that nothing had changed out there at all.

"All right, it should be just around here." Romeo said.

As Romeo led them straight to the iron gates at the front of the prison, they saw that the Warden was blocking it with himself and a piece of TNT.

"We have a situation here." Jack observed.

"Back! Back! All of you!" The Warden ordered. "One more step and it's kaboomsville!"

The Warden noticed Jesse.

"Jesse!"

The other prisoners turned around and gave Jesse a scowl upon noticing his clothes.

"Hey, you're wearing a guard's outfit!" A prisoner observed. "Well, guards ain't in charge no more! And furthermore, I'm not a fan of guards! So, thusly, you're getting beat up! A bunch."

It was then and there, that the Warden finally noticed who was standing next to Jesse.

"Jesse! You freed Romeo?!" The Warden gasped in horror. "Just when I thought you couldn't ruin my life anymore! What in the world were you THINKING?!"

The other prisoners backed away in fear upon noticing that it was indeed Romeo. They all abandoned the Warden, screaming in terror.

"I think you've clearly lost your mind!" The Warden continued. "That red-head, is nothing but bad news!"

"He doesn't deserve to be locked up! NONE of us do!" Jesse protested.

"Did you know he was once an Admin, too?"

The entire group looked at Romeo in shock.

"The Admin had to take his powers away. He was too much of a liability to her!" The Warden said.

Romeo glared at the Warden with such loathing that even Jesse felt unsure about being too close to him. His head was literally shaking in rage.

"There is no way in hell I'm going to let him ruin things for the Admin, not when she is this close to success! Even if I need to blow us all up to do it!" The Warden declared before putting the TNT down and holding out his flint and steel.

But, before he could light it, Romeo took out his bow and arrow and shot a poison arrow directly into his chest, killing him instantly. The Warden poofed into smoke, dropping a flint and steel and some TNT. Romeo slowly walked up and pocketed the items. He turned around, to notice Jesse and the gang staring at him with mistrustful gazes.

"What?" Romeo asked.

"So, is it true, what he said about you? You were an Admin?"

Romeo closed his eyes and turned around.

"This isn't how I intended for you guys to find out." Romeo said, quietly.

"We want answers, Romeo!" Jesse exclaimed.

Romeo sighed, before nodding.

"Yes, I was an Admin." Romeo confessed, his voice a mere whisper. "It was a long time ago. When Xara revealed her true colors, she took my Admin powers away from me before building this place and banishing me into it."

Romeo noticed that Jesse was still looking at him warily.

"But Xara is the one in the wrong here. She was the one who trapped you all down here, not me!" Romeo pleaded. "Look, I can't tell you exactly where we're going or what we'll be looking for, you'd never believe me if I did. But you have to trust me. Please."

"I'm sick of secrets. You should've said something!" Jesse snapped.

"I was going to lay the truth onto you slowly." Romeo responded. "If I had just shoved it all on you at once, who's stopping you from calling me crazy and just abandoning me? I've waited far too long for a chance to get vengeance on Xara. I can't afford to squander it now."

"No more secrets." Jesse said.

"Fine, no more secrets." Romeo conceded.

"There's no way we can trust him now!" Jack accused.

"Wait, so an Admin can be stripped of their powers?" Radar asked.

"Yes. Difficult maybe, but it is possible." Romeo answered.

"So, what do we-"

"We need to get moving, now! Before Xara finds any excuse to come back down here!" Romeo insisted.

"Yeah, I guess we should keep moving." Jesse agreed.

"Follow me." Romeo instructed, before taking off into the maze. Jesse and the others right behind him.

As they continued on into the maze, Jack approached Jesse.

"I… I'm sorry, Jesse. But do you really trust him?" Jack asked. "He's not right in the head."

"You haven't seen what I've seen, Jack. The Admin is nuts. We need all the help we can get to defeat her." Jesse reasoned.

"But him? Really?"

"We don't exactly have another ex-admin, Jack."

Romeo suddenly stopped and held his hand out. Suddenly, the purple colored spider-creepers and spiders appeared from above the walls.

"Stealing my concepts for yourself, Xara? Why am I not surprised?" Romeo questioned.

"Gah, run!" Jesse screamed.

"Way ahead of you!" Jack said as they took off again.

"Seriously, what's with these monsters?! They're all glowing!" Radar questioned.

They reached an opening, where they realized that they are completely surrounded.

"They're pretty scary-looking, Jesse."

"Then let's be scarier." Jesse responded.

The group of five engaged the mobs. Jesse took care of some zombies easily, before moving onto a spider, where Jesse and Romeo knocked a spider back and forth with their swords, eventually killing it.

"How many of these things are there?" Jack groaned.

"Never just one! Never!" Jesse repeated, as he climbed on a wall and took care of a zombie.

"Nice work!"

"Thanks, Jack."

Jack and Jesse watched Romeo pulverize more mobs.

"Skillful. Impressive." Jack remarked.

Romeo did not respond, instead plunging his sword into a spider that was about to jump on him.

They continued fighting, with Nurm brutally murdering some mobs and Radar needing some help, until Jesse knocked a spider-creeper into the obsidian wall, creating a hole.

"Let's get out of here!" Jesse called out.

"Nice shortcut." Romeo appraised. "Come on!"

"I tell you what, he is as crazy as a hopped-up ocelot." Radar remarked.

"Oh, yeah!" Jack agreed.

They followed Romeo, into a dead end.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!" Romeo panicked. "It wasn't like this last time! There's got to be a way!"

"Uhhh, Romeo? You all right there?" Radar asked, nervously.

"SHUT UP AND LET ME THINK!" Romeo screamed.

"See! I told you we shouldn't have trusted him. He's lost." Jack pointed out.

"Let, me, think!" Romeo snarled.

"_Think,_ or make something up?"

Jesse stepped in on Romeo's behalf, diffusing the argument before it started.

"Aw, come on. He didn't get lost on purpose!" Jesse defended.

"Exactly." Romeo agreed. "Thanks, Jesse."

Romeo looked up and saw a potential exit strategy.

"Wait! We can just build to the top of the wall." Romeo said.

"And get to the other side that way! Yeah!" Radar finished.

"Sounds good to me!" Jesse said.

Radar, Jack and Nurm engaged the mobs while Romeo and Jesse dug up a pile of dirt and used it to build to the top of the wall.

Upon reaching the top, Jesse looked around, spotting a building in the distance.

"Whoa!"

Romeo immediately covered Jesse's mouth.

"Shut it, or you'll wake that thing up!" Romeo growled.

Romeo pointed towards the center of a large gap in the maze, where Jesse saw a large three-headed ghast hibernating.

"Guys, be very quiet when you come up here!" Jesse whispered loudly.

"What? Why?" Jack questioned.

"SHHHHH!" Romeo snapped. "Just come up really slowly, and we'll sneak past that three-headed ghast."

Jack, Radar and Nurm came up slowly. Jesse turned towards the building in the distance. Getting a closer look, Jesse saw that it was made out of diamonds.

"Well, there it is guys; our ticket out of here." Jesse whispered.

"That is… sparkly." Radar commented.

"The sparkliest." Romeo agreed.

"Is that, diamond?" Jack questioned.

"Follow me." Romeo instructed.

They slowly climbed down from the top of the obsidian maze and followed Romeo's lead once again.

"I'm not a very trusting person. Xara betrayed me, and I had trouble getting along with the others back at that detention facility or whatever the fuck Xara's calling it. Before you mentioned the Redstone Heart, I thought you were trying to play some kind of game with me." Romeo said. "The scary thing is, it just happened out of the blue. Xara never used to be the way that she is now."

"We've all suffered because of the Admin." Jesse said.

"And some have and will suffer much worse." Romeo added. "There's something else that I want to mention to you. There was a third Admin, called Fred."

"Where is he?" Jesse asked.

"He's dead. Me and Fred got into an argument one day, and that's when Xara chose to strike. She came in out of the blue and wiped him out. It was just so sudden, that I don't think I truly reacted to it until I was already imprisoned."

They reached the diamond building.

"Uh, where's the rest of it?" Jack questioned.

"The rest of what?" Romeo inquired.

"The rest of that building." Jack explained. "How are we supposed to use it to escape? It doesn't go up very far!"

"We aren't going up. We're going down." Romeo said.

"Down? There is no _down._ We're standing on bedrock. You can't go any lower." Jack protested.

"That's the point. What we're looking for, is below the bedrock." Romeo said.

"Everybody knows there's nothing under the bedrock except… nothing! And also certain death."

"We are not at the very bottom of the world! It only seems that way!" Romeo reasoned. "Trust me, there is a whole lot more to see underneath the bedrock."

Jesse remained silent. Jack glared at Romeo, before slowly walking back into the maze.

"I'd rather take my chances in the maze than listen to any more of his lies. Any of you are welcome to join me."

"That's crazy talk, all those monsters!" Jesse responded.

"I don't care! He's an Admin. An Admin killed Sammy, then stole her identity, and then…" Jack couldn't continue.

"Remember, she took my admin powers away." Romeo reminded. "Down there, lies the secret to taking Xara's powers away from her. Forever. Fred and I discovered a few ways to do it."

The monsters chose that time to show up.

"Jesse, help me get into this tower." Romeo called out.

Jesse and Romeo broke the window panes on the side of the tower, revealing a set of steps coming out of darkness.

"This is it! Our salvation!" Romeo exclaimed.

The mobs were really starting to gain on them.

"Now there's a good reason to get a move on." Jesse said, before jumping in. Romeo following. Jack, Nurm and Radar eventually followed too.

* * *

Author's Notes: Now we're moving into the underneath. Things from here on are going to go a little bit differently than in Canon, especially considering that Petra is not with them this time.

Like it? Review. Don't like it, look up another story.

More to follow.


	9. The Underneath

Chapter 8 – The Underneath

* * *

(Minecraft: Story Mode and its characters belong to Telltale Games, not me.)

* * *

"Haha, don't worry, everyone. This is just like the time I jumped from the cliffs of Na'pow, only…"

Nurm voiced his disagreement, cutting Jack off.

"Ah, who am I kidding? This is nothing like that." Jack admitted.

Romeo sighed, before approaching Jesse and Jack.

"Look, I know we may have gotten off the wrong foot back there, but I'm not like Xara. I'm not your enemy. I want Xara defeated just as much as you guys do." Romeo said.

Jack raised an eyebrow.

"In fact, my reasons are more personal than yours. She betrayed us and killed Fred. And then she did something extremely bad, she bedrocked over our world."

"What?"

Romeo gestured for them to follow before walking towards an opening of the dark room they were in. Looking out, Jesse saw what Romeo meant. There was a whole world down here, with a layer of bedrock covering the entirety of it. Thunder was roaring in the background as Jesse saw distant flashes of lightning.

"Wow, you were right." Jesse remarked. "There's a whole world down here."

"The very first world." Romeo said. "Established by us. Xara, Fred and me. This is the first time I've seen it since Xara bedrocked over it all."

"You, made this?" Radar questioned.

"Yes." Romeo answered. "Or, what's left of it, at least. The view used to be marvelous up here."

"It must be hard to see your world like this." Jesse said. "How… long have you been gone exactly?"

"There's no telling how accurate my estimation is, but I'd say it would be at least 50 years." Romeo answered. "It's hard to tell how much time has passed when you're locked in a room twenty-four seven without any sunlight to keep track of."

Romeo continued on.

"Before I was imprisoned, Xara forced me to watch the bedrocking. But even then, seeing the world like this…"

"Xara?" Radar whispered into Jesse's ear.

"The Admin." Jesse said.

"Oh."

"It's much worse than I expected." Romeo finished, before jumping down.

Jesse followed him down, to see him standing still in shock. He looked as though he was on the verge of tears.

"This is the room where it happened." Romeo whispered. "I witnessed it. Fred and I were in an argument, when Xara came in and just…"

Romeo started sobbing. Jesse tapped him on the back, in a comforting way.

"She needs to be stopped. That's why we're here. She hurt you, and she'll hurt more people." Jesse said.

"I wonder if she ever considered me and Fred her friends at all, or if she was manipulating us right from the very beginning." Romeo said.

They walked through a doorway.

"Now, we're looking for a white colored gauntlet." Romeo said. "I don't exactly know where it might be, but I do know that Fred was the last person to have it, and I didn't see it in his inventory when he died. I know of two possible locations."

"And what are they?" Jesse asked.

"Fred's Keep, which is that way. Or our old cabin, which is back behind us." Romeo said. "We'll go to Fred's keep first."

A screech got Jesse's attention.

"That sounded vaguely ominous." Jesse said.

"Oh no." Romeo whispered.

On the ground in-front of them, spawned a giant 50-feet tall Enderman. It turned around, and upon seeing the group staring at it, screeched at them.

"That is the biggest Enderman I've ever seen." Radar said, backing away in fear.

The group retreated back through the doorway they came through and hid themselves.

"That Enderman, is one of my creations." Romeo admitted.

"What!?" Jack exclaimed.

"I liked to experiment with mobs, and it seems that in my absence, that Enderman has found out a way to get out of the lab that I put it in." Romeo explained.

The Enderman teleported right behind Jesse, forcing him to move.

"It would be great if I could go one day, just ONE DAY, without seeing something NEW AND COMPLETELY TERRIFYING!" Radar ranted.

"So that monstrosity is one of yours then." Jack said, glaring at Romeo.

"Time to move, guys." Jesse instructed before Romeo could respond. They began to move, but the Enderman teleported again, freezing Radar in place. He was staring directly into its eyes.

"So, mesmerizing." Radar said slowly, as the Enderman got angrier.

"Not in the eyes, Radar. Don't look at it's eyes." Jesse exclaimed, grabbing Radar and pulling him out of the way. They landed on the floor underneath them.

"Sorry, Jesse! I don't know what happened. It was just… hypnotic. So big, and glow-y." Radar apologized.

"Go, go!"

"Going!"

They jumped off the floor before the Enderman could hit them. Jesse landed on his stomach, before being helped up by Nurm.

"Thanks."

The Enderman pulled a piece off of the tower they were on.

"It's dismantling the tower!" Jack pointed out.

Jesse wasted no time in standing there. Instead, continuing to jump down to the bottom of the tower. They eventually reached the bottom and raced outside.

"The shortest way to Fred's Keep is by the minecarts, which start at Xara's town, the Oasis. As much as I hate to do so, we're going to go to the Oasis." Romeo said. "Follow me."

Jesse's attention was caught by a figure disappearing out of sight in the distance.

"What? Did you guys just see…?" Jesse stammered.

"Jesse, we have to move." Romeo interrupted.

Jesse turned around and followed Romeo and the others. Eventually, after a lot of side-stepping and hiding, they reached the outskirts of a town.

"Is this place safe?" Radar asked. "I mean, y'know, not asking for me, 'cause I'm tough. Whatever."

"A place built by an omnipotent power-mad redstonist? Probably not." Romeo answered, before turning around and seeing the Oasis for himself.

Jesse took a look around and saw that the place was in complete disrepair.

"Scratch that. It's definitely not safe." Romeo added. "What in the hell went on in here?"

Romeo wandered off into a building wreck.

"We have to keep moving." Jesse said to Jack, Radar and Nurm. "No telling what kind of trouble the Admin has stirred up in our world."

The four of them split up. Jack and Nurm went in one direction, Radar in another while Jesse followed Romeo into the building, where he saw him staring at a painting. It consisted of Xara on the left, in her purple colored glory, standing next to two other figures who Jesse didn't recognize at first.

He took a closer look and realized that the figure on the very right had a very familiar hair-style. It was Romeo, back when he was an Admin. Admin Romeo seemed to have dark grey skin, glowing yellow eyes with red sclera and his outfit was entirely black, with glowing red lines around it. His hair back then was a bright neon red, compared to the current faded red that Romeo's hair sported now. The figure in the middle was large and dark blue with glowing cyan gems on his forehead and outfit. His hair was tied back into a bun. Jesse assumed that this was Fred.

"Yep, that's us." Romeo finally spoke, startling Jesse. "That was not long after we first got our powers."

"Wow, you three look so happy there." Jesse commented.

"Those were the days." Romeo lamented. "Well, let's not waste any more time standing around. We've got a gauntlet to find."

The group got together, and they approached a set of minecarts, in the direction to Fred's Keep.

"Fred's Keep, here we come!" Jesse said as they hopped into the minecarts.

"Uh, Jesse?" Jack said, nervously, pointing forward. Jesse looked around, and there stood the giant Enderman. It screeched them as they sped off in the minecarts.

"Oh no. Who made eye contact with the Enderman?" Jesse grumbled.

"I'm sorry!" Radar responded.

The Enderman teleported in-front of them.

"It's okay, we're still okay as long as it doesn't-" Jack began.

The Enderman pulled a piece of the track off and teleported away.

"-do that." Jack finished.

"Everybody jump!" Jesse said as they got up and jumped off the minecart just as it fell off the damaged tracks. Jesse caught hold of a cliff, struggling to climb up. Jack landed next to him, in the same predicament as himself.

"Jack!"

"I'm okay!" Jack responded before losing his grip and grabbing hold to a dangling block of gravel. "Oh! Need to stop saying that!"

A pig head appeared above them.

"You two are in a bit of a pinch, ain't ya?" It taunted. "Smell like a couple of Admin lackeys to me. AKA, trouble!"

"Definitely smells like Admin." 'Creeper' head agreed.

"Yeah, we're kinda, stuck here. Can you help us out?" Jesse pleaded.

"Huh, maaaaaybe. Depends, really." 'Pig' head responded.

"Yeah, depends." 'Enderman' head agreed.

"We've been scavenging these lands since the darkness fell." 'Pig' head explained. "You know what? We can sniff out an outsider when we… sniff one. So what're you doing all the way down here, small fry? You lost?"

"We're here to take down the Admin." Jesse responded.

'Pig' head laughed in amusement.

"You're kidding! You can't even make it off this gravel cliff by yourself! Hahaha! Maybe we help ya, maybe we just walk away, leave you here to die."

"The first one! Pick the first one!" Jack begged.

"I dunno, seems like a lotta work." 'Pig' head said. "Getting down there, pullin' you up."

"Help us and we may surprise you." Jesse said. "When's the last time you met someone new down here?"

"Not a fan of surprises, 'specially since the last one." 'Pig' head replied. "Things do get pretty boring down here, though. Here's the deal, folks. Down here we don't do anything for free. Can't really blame us, what with the giant monsters and nothin' growin'."

"So, how 'bout we take your inventory for a spin? Permanently." 'Pig' head suggested.  
"We're really interested in any weaponry you may have."

"A warrior without their sword in a place like this is dead meat!" Jack objected.

"Your friend doesn't look like he's gonna last much longer." 'Pig' head observed. "What'll it be?"

"Don't do it, Jesse." Jack said. "We can find another way."

"Your swords, or splat flatter than a lily pad at the bottom of this canyon?"

"No deal!" Jesse decided.

"Ah, well, that's disappointing." 'Pig' head said.

"Yeah! We'll go our own way!" Jack agreed.

"Don't go playin' hero, squishies. World this dark'll snuff out a light like you, real fast!" 'Pig' head warned.

The gravel underneath Jack collapsed, and he was sent falling.

"Jack!" Jesse cried.

"JESSSSSEEEE!"

"JACK!" Jesse screamed.

No, it couldn't be. Jack? Dead? It was impossible.

"Eh, tried to tell ya." 'Pig' head taunted. "Move out, ya stinkbags!"

"JACK!"

Jesse did not hear a thud, or any sound of Jack landing, which worried him. He managed to leap off the gravel before it collapsed and grabbed onto a ledge to his right. Since it wasn't gravel, Jesse was able to pull himself up and eventually managed to reach the spot of the cliff where the scavengers were looking over them.

"Jack?"

"Sorry about your pal." Pig-head said. "Hope that sword was worth it! Hahaha, see ya!"

An explosion behind Jesse got his attention, looking around, he saw that it was Nurm, Romeo and Radar. Romeo offered his hand to help Radar up off the ground, but Radar shook his head and got up himself. They saw Jesse.

"Jesse!" Romeo called out. "You're okay! Great, come on!"

When Jesse didn't move, Romeo turned around and saw that they were missing Jack.

"Where's your friend?" Romeo asked.

Time to break the news.

"He didn't make it."

Romeo widened his eyes for a moment, before giving Jesse a guilty look. But they were forced to move by another set of creepers approaching them. They raced off towards a set of blue lights in the distance. Jesse explaining what happened to Jack on the way.

"…and then, he was gone." Jesse finished explaining.

"Did you see him land by any chance?" Romeo asked.

Jesse shook his head.

"Oh no, Jack." Radar whispered. "He, he can't be."

"Jack knew we had to defeat the Admin no matter what." Jesse said. "He would want us to keep going."

Nurm finally lost it and started going hysterical.

"Jesse's right. We can't allow Jack's death to be in vain." Romeo said, turning to Nurm. Jesse offered his hand.

"Come on."

They started walking across a bridge, which led to an island that was lit up by glowing trees. They reached a gap in the bridge.

"Guess this is how they keep the mobs out." Jesse said.

They jumped over the gap and kept moving until they reached the entrance.

"This, is Fred's Keep." Romeo announced. "Now, let me do the explaining."

They walked in through the entrance, to find a citizen sitting alone, reading a book. Their presence startled her.

"Strangers!" She gasped. "Strangers! Binta!"

She ran off.

"Wait!" Romeo called out. "It's me, Romeo."

"Romeo?"

"Yes, it's me!"

"I-If it's r-really you? W-What happened to your powers?" The citizen asked, nervously.

"They were taken away from me, that's what happened." Romeo responded. "Now, can we come in please? We've got a few things we need to do here."

The citizen nodded before turning around and sprinting inside. Romeo, Jesse and the rest of their group followed.

"…have been returned." They heard a dark-skinned woman announce as they stepped into Fred's Keep. "Festivities will close with a fireworks display as usual. And don't forget to sign up for our 'Faithful Friends of Fred' trivia competition for a chance to win ONE NIGHT in Fred's house."

This was followed by cheering and applause.

"Come on, people. We can't let Kent win every time, can we? Study up! Competition starts at Fred-o-clock! Why did I say that?"

"Glad to see that nothing much has changed here." Romeo remarked. "They're trapped underground with a bunch of monsters, including a giant Enderman and yet they focus on their trivia. That's the Fred's Keep I know."

"Oh man, I LOVE trivia!" Jesse said.

"Really?" Romeo raised an eyebrow.

"Yes! It's so fun!" Radar exclaimed. "Flexing those brain muscles, taking your mind off the incredible misery in the world crushing down on you every-"

Radar stopped upon seeing that Jesse, Nurm and Romeo were staring at him.

"I mean, uh… Oh, look at that." Radar stammered.

They approached the dark-skinned woman.

"Welcome to Fred's Keep. My name is Binta." She introduced. "This is the part where you tell me why you're here."

Romeo stepped forward.

"Hey Binta." He said.

Binta almost jumped back in shock.

"Romeo?"

"Yeah, listen. We need to enter Fred's House. We've got something we need to find." Romeo explained.

"As much as I'd love to oblige, I'm afraid only Romeo here can enter Fred's house." Binta said.

"What, why?" Jesse asked.

"Fred's House is sacred. And… locked. No one enters unless they win the contest." Binta explained. "No one. It's how we honor Fred. Even I only enter through its doors on special occasions. Most of my townspeople have never even been inside. I'm only allowing Romeo through because he was one of Fred's oldest friends."

"I'm sorry, Binta. But I can't find this thing alone." Romeo reasoned.

"In which case, maybe we could do some trivia then?" Jesse suggested.

"Haha, that's the spirit." Binta appraised. "I wasn't sure an outsider would understand. Fred built this place, made it safe from all the monsters out there. This is his legacy, his final request. The door stays locked until someone wins."

"You're welcome to try your luck, see how well you know Fred." Binta said.

"I don't know him very well at all. I've… never met him." Jesse admitted.

"Guess you'd better start researching. Good luck."

Jesse turned around and saw Romeo give him a wink. That's it, Romeo could tell Jesse facts about Fred. Jesse approached him.

"If you're going to win that trivia contest, you're going to need to study up on my old friend." Romeo said.

Romeo turned around, before continuing.

"Fred's favorite tool was a diamond hoe. His favorite color was lapis blue. His favorite food is bread. His pet's name was Waffles, and his favorite material was birch wood."

"Whoa, whoa. Slow down." Jesse cut in. "There's no way I can remember all of that at once."

And so they spent the next hour going over as many facts about Fred as they can. Eventually, it got to the point where Jesse could tell Romeo about Fred with such accuracy that Romeo would have thought Jesse knew him his whole life. Jesse also got a good idea of what Fred looked like by the posters of him around town, which were much more detailed than the poster of the three admins in the Oasis.

At last, Jesse returned to Binta.

"Ah! There you are. Are you ready to begin?" Binta asked.

"I'm ready, let's do this." Jesse said.

"It's about time!" A voice added. It belonged to the white bearded guy with the top hat who Binta was talking about when they first arrived. Jesse believed his name was Kent.

"Attention, everyone! Let all Faithful Friends of Fred gather, for our competition begins now!" Binta announced. "Gather 'round everyone! Will the contestants please take the stage!"

Kent stepped up.

"Please welcome reigning champion, Kent!" Binta introduced. "And we have a challenger! Uh…"

"Jesse. It's Jesse." Jesse informed.

"Jesse!"

Jesse and Kent stared at each other.

"That feeling of intimidation? Totally normal. I have that effect on people. Comes from being the best." Kent bragged.

"What a pinnacle of intellectual fortitude!" A person from the crowd shouted.

"Kent! Be my best friend!"

"May the most faithful friend of Fred win." Jesse responded.

"Oh, I will."

"For our first question, I thought we'd mix it up a little." Binta started off. A bunch of people delivered supplies to both Jesse and Kent. "I challenge you to build a faithful representation of our dear Fred!"

"Yeah! Jesse's the best at building!" Radar cheered.

"Not so loud, Radar!" Romeo snapped.

"Begin!"

Jesse and Kent took their items and proceeded to their building canvasses. Jesse spent the next ten minutes building Fred's head, using the poster as a reference. Eventually, Jesse believed that it resembled Fred's head quite accurately.

"Nice!" Jesse remarked.

"Yes, yes, yes! Jesse, it's as if you've known Fred his whole life!" Binta commented.

"W-what? How can you say that? That- that thing looks nothing like our fallen leader!" Kent protested.

"Fred's true spirit didn't lie with his exterior, Kent, but what was underneath. This is his true essence!" Binta responded. "Though, I must give you points for accuracy. Such, painstaking detail."

"I declare this round, a draw!" Binta declared. "This was quite possibly the best presentation of Freds in the history of our competition."

Jesse looked behind him, and saw that Romeo was nodding approvingly.

"Now for the questions! Kent, you will go first." Binta said.

"Of course!"

"Remember, you have a limited time to answer." Binta reminded. "What was Fred's favorite food?"

"Oh, that's easy." Kent responded. "Any truly faithful friend would know that Fred, enjoyed bread."

Jesse couldn't help but notice that the two names rhymed with each other.

"Correct!"

"Now you, Jesse. Fred was a loyal fan of the color blue, we all know that. But what _kind _of blue did he love the most?" Binta questioned.

"C'mon, Jesse, you can do this." Radar whispered.

"His favorite color was Lapis Blue!" Jesse responded.

"That is correct! Well done." Binta said. "Next question."

Binta turned back to Kent.

"Kent, Fred was a man of simple means. But he had one point of excess; his favorite tool. What was it?" Binta asked.

"A diamond hoe. Obviously!" Kent answered.

"Very good!" Binta said. "Jesse, Fred had a constant companion. A fine feathery friend. What was that pet's name?"

"I actually had to babysit that chicken once!" Romeo recounted. "Fred was doing some Admin related stuff at the time.

"Hahaha, really?" Radar inquired.

"Silence, please." Binta interrupted.

"Fred's pet, his best friend, was named Waffles." Jesse regurgitated. "For the way he was always… waffling."

Romeo burst into quiet laughter at that remark.

"That… is correct!" Binta responded. "Jesse, well done! I am, rather astounded that the competition continues to be this close. Kent, you might finally lose your title."

Binta gestured for Jesse and Kent to move closer.

"Listen closely, both of you." Binta instructed. "The final question is one that only the most faithful friend to Fred could possibly know. As such, it is worth double. Whoever answers this question correctly first, will win one night in Fred's House."

"Of all the trees in the forest, of all the wood we once built our homes with, this was Fred's favorite. What was it?" Binta questioned.

"Wait, what? No one knows that. Fred didn't play favorites with resources." Kent shot back.

"C'mon, Jesse!" Jesse heard Romeo whisper.

"It's birch. It's birch!" Jesse exclaimed.

"You… yes! Yes! Birch was Fred's favorite!" Binta happily confirmed.

Kent slowly lowered his head.

"That's right! Jesse won! Haha!" Radar celebrated.

"Good job, Jesse!" Romeo congratulated.

Binta turned to Jesse.

"Congratulations! That was very impressive. I'm sure I'm not the only one surprised by this turn of events." Binta said. "As your prize, you will spend one night in Fred's house. Be careful not to disturb its contents."

Binta pulled out a blue colored outfit.

"And here are your sleeping garments. The true mark of Fred." Binta offered. "Only the champion gets to wear these."

"I love them! Thank you!" Jesse said as he took them and slipped them on. Binta led Jesse towards Fred's house, Romeo racing forward.

"Wait, I'm coming in with you!" Romeo called out.

"Jesse, Romeo. I hope you guys find what you're looking for." Binta said.

Jesse and Romeo stepped inside.

"Kinda cozy." Jesse commented.

"In fact, if you were to cover your face in blue makeup, dye your hair blue and tie it into a bun and do something about the color of your eyes, I'd say you make a pretty convincing Fred cosplay." Romeo added. "Now, we've got a gauntlet to find. Knowing Fred, he wouldn't have just left it in the open. We need to get creative. For starters, try looking for a secret room."

"Okay, if I were a gauntlet of some sort, where would I be?" Jesse asked to himself. He saw Fred's bed, and for some reason, he couldn't contain himself. "No one will mind if I just…"

Jesse hopped onto the bed and started jumping on it.

"Woohoo! Hahahaha!"

That got Romeo's attention.

"Jesse, seriously?" Romeo deadpanned. "You're supposed to be looking for clues, not wasting time jumping on beds."

Jesse jumped off at once.

"Heh, sorry."

Jesse approached a bookshelf and look at the titles of some of the books in it.

"_The Foundation._" Jesse read out, before reaching out and grabbing another book that caught his eye. "Whoa, half the pages are gone. And the rest, there are a lot of notes."

Jesse flipped a page.

"…_community didn't seem to be as important to him. Whatever ideas that he'd had when he'd started, they'd shifted. Re-routed. Something else had settled on his soul._ The rest is marked out." Jesse continued reading.

"He's talking about me, isn't he?" Romeo asked.

Jesse put the book away and approached another set of books.

"_The Life of a Cog and other Existential Builder Crises._" Jesse read. "Okay, maybe there's a clue in here?"

Jesse picked it up and read a random page.

"_When one becomes one with building, one's heart will follow the path of…_ Uh, no."

"To be honest Jesse, I don't see how a book related to building is going to help us here." Romeo said.

Jesse put the book back and was about to walk to the other side of the house, when an open book got his attention.

"_Brave New Enderman_… by Soren? Definitely not what I'm looking for, but… man."

"Wait, you know Soren?" Romeo asked.

"He was the leader of the original Order of the Stone." Jesse said. "Weirdly obsessed with Endermen."

"The Order of the what, now?" Romeo asked. "Sorry, never heard of that group. Although, I do agree with you about the Endermen part. He's definitely a little bit… eccentric about them."

Jesse shrugged before picking up the book.

"_Once upon a time, there was a little Enderman who was afraid of the dark. All the bigger Endermen taunted him and didn't let him play their Enderman games._ Yadda, yadda, yadda, he faces his fear. He's a Brave New Enderman. Wow, I thought Soren only wrote reference books. Huh."

Jesse walked to the back of the house and kneeled by the furnaces.

"Empty." Jesse observed. "No one's used this thing for a long time."

Jesse approached the doors, leading to what appeared to be a closet. Except it was bare, except for a suspicious looking button.

"Ha, I knew there had to be something hidden in here." Romeo exclaimed. "Let's see what that button does."

Romeo and Jesse walked in and Romeo pushed the button, causing the floor to drop to a lower level.

"Whoa, secret room." Jesse exclaimed.

* * *

Author's Notes: Yep, I'm going to leave it here. I'm already pushing 4000 words here.

Like it? Review. Don't like it, look up something else.

More to follow.


	10. The Confession

Chapter 9 – The Confession

* * *

(Minecraft: Story Mode and its characters belong to Telltale Games, not me.)

* * *

Jesse picked a torch off the wall, before exploring around the secret room with Romeo.

"There's gotta be something down here."

Jesse approached a bookshelf.

"This one is called _The Survivors' Book of Secrets._ Okay, secrets are good." Jesse said, before picking the book up. "_This book contains the collective knowledge of the Survivors. We're an underground group of survival experts who have been around since the early days…_ It goes on. Signed by _The Chief._"

Meanwhile, Romeo found a few water buckets, which he put into his inventory, as they may come in useful later on. He found an unmarked book. Interested, he took a read through it.

"_I know I had my doubts, but it was worth leaving home. I'm glad I had Xara and Romeo with me._" Romeo read aloud before doing a double take. "Fred's Journal!"

Jesse came racing over. Romeo turned the page and kept reading.

"_I don't know what Romeo wants anymore. It hurts. All I wanted was the three of us, together. Maybe we should have never left the cabin. We weren't just happy there, we were home._"

Romeo started sniffling, before breaking out into sobs.

"What's wrong?" Jesse asked.

"I-I'm so sorry." Romeo whimpered.

"Romeo?"

Romeo snapped out of it and looked up at Jesse.

"S-sit down." Romeo instructed. "I-I've got something to t-t-tell y-you."

Romeo wiped the tears from his eyes before launching into his story.

"When we left that cabin after getting our powers, I wasn't exactly 100% happy about it." Romeo began. "Fred and Xara wanted to build towns and start communities, but I didn't exactly want to leave the past behind. Which is part of the reason why I built Romeoburg on top of our old cabin."

Romeo closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"But it didn't work. Nothing ever could make me feel as happy and alive as I was back when we were living together in that cabin. So I tried to hang out with my friends as often as I could, for old times sake. But they kept getting busier, and busier, and busier, and busier! It got to the point where they were unable to hang out with me anymore, as they were too busy managing their own towns."

Jesse noticed that it seemed very difficult for Romeo to continue, but he was interested in the story of what drove them apart.

"It's as if they had found their perfect hobbies. Things that made them happy. It slowly got to me, it was as if they had forgotten about me! It hurt, quite a lot."

"Eventually, after not hanging out with them in forever, I slowly became desperate. I built a challenge in Romeoburg and I began to look for someone to be my friend. My _champion_, as I liked to call it back then. But it just wasn't the same. Power began to go to my head, and I became a very difficult person to be around."

"And the scariest part of that? I almost went down Xara's path myself. I was very close to losing myself when Xara betrayed us. After spending forever suffering under a corrupt Admin, it made me think just how dangerously close I had been to being exactly like Xara."

"Hey, don't compare yourself to the Admin, you're nothing like her." Jesse said.

"True." Romeo agreed. "She was evil from the beginning, while in my case, I almost let my emotions get the better of me."

"Watching Fred die, watching Xara take my powers away from me and then watching her bedrock over this world and then imprison me, it made me see just how horrible I'd been. Next time, I won't take all these things for granted, after seeing first hand just what can happen if you're not careful. I don't know what the hell I was thinking. I should have known that someone as loyal and as nice as Fred wouldn't just abandon me like that."

"_Next time?_" Jesse questioned.

"I… I'll explain later." Romeo responded, dodging the question. "Anyway, now that I have that off my chest, why don't we keep looking for that gauntlet, 'ey?"

"You got it." Jesse agreed.

After searching tirelessly, they were forced to accept that there was nothing here.

"Well, this place is a bust. I guess it's time to go to Romeoburg." Romeo said. "Come on."

Romeo and Jesse returned to the upper level of Fred's house, and they returned to the front door, where Binta was standing there outside.

"Binta!"

"Romeo, Jesse." Binta greeted. "I… there's something I need to request from you."

"What's that?" Romeo asked.

"Rumors have been going around since your arrival. There aren't many people we don't recognize down here." Binta said.

"Yeah, about that…" Jesse said, sheepishly.

"Well? Did you at least find what you were looking for? This _weapon?_" Binta asked. "I don't know why Fred would have one. But I must admit, I'm curious."

"I'm afraid we're going to need to keep searching for a bit." Romeo answered.

"Well, I want to help you, but… there's something I need from you in return." Binta said, turning to Jesse. "If you're really from up there, then you must have a way back. Take us with you, above the Bedrock."

"Above? Binta, what are you saying?" A citizen asked nervously. "We don't know what's out there."

"It has to be better than this." Binta reasoned.

"We're safe here, and if Xara…"

"Xara trapped us down here. She wants us to stay. I won't give her the satisfaction."

"She won't like us going up there." A ginger-haired citizen said.

"Are you absolutely sure about this Binta?" Romeo questioned. "I haven't got a clue what Xara's doing up there, but I do know that it's bad. If you really want to return with us, then I won't stop you."

"Thank you."

"However, you may have to do some convincing." Romeo pointed out.

"They'll come around." Binta reassured. "The mycelium on this island has kept the monsters from spawning, and we've been safe here so far, but it won't last. Our only chance for a real future is up there."

"Well, we'll get to the cabin, get the weapon, and we'll come back." Jesse said. "Then, we will figure out a way to get above the bedrock."

Binta pulled out a compass.

"Fred left this to me before he…"

Binta sobbed slightly.

"I tried to follow your instructions to go to Romeoburg when you didn't come back. But I got stopped at the gates to Romeoburg."

Romeo raised an eyebrow.

"You need to do something about that army of yours there." Binta said.

"I'm not following." Romeo responded. "I don't remember ever having an army there."

"Well, what I'm trying to say to you is be careful." Binta warned. "In the meantime, I'll prepare my people. You just find that weapon, and report back."

Nurm returned.

"Great, you're here. We've got a new destination, so…" Jesse began.

Nurm interrupted with a vocalization.

"Wait, what? You're not coming? You're gonna stay here and wait for Jack?" Romeo asked, seemingly understanding Nurm. "In which case, I agree with you. If there is a slight chance that Jack survived that fall, someone needs to be here when he gets back."

Romeo turned towards Radar.

"Speaking of which, I'd highly recommend you stay here too."

"What?"

"My challenge, it's incredibly dangerous, and I'd rather not see you get hurt." Romeo said.

"But…" Radar tried to protest.

"I'm sorry, but it's for the best." Romeo insisted. "Besides, you can stay here and on the off-chance that Jack does show up, tell him that we've gone to Romeoburg. Okay?"

Radar gave a sad look before nodding.

Jesse approached Nurm.

"Hey, stay safe. Both of you."

Romeo and Jesse left Fred's keep and made tracks for Romeoburg.

* * *

Romeo and Jesse didn't really talk for the first part of the trip. Eventually, after riding for a while, Romeo took a look around and recognized the surroundings.

"Okay, Romeoburg shouldn't be too much further." Romeo observed.

Jesse looked ahead and saw a crater inside the tracks.

"Uh oh, tracks out! Brace yourself!"

The minecarts tumbled off the tracks upon hitting the crater, spilling the duo out onto the ground.

"Ow, ugh!"

"Man, the track is a complete wreck." Romeo commented.

"Yeah, what's up with that…"

"DUCK!" Romeo screamed, dodging to the side as a splash potion of slowness splashed in the spot where he was just standing.

"Jesse, we've got company." Romeo pointed.

Jesse looked around, and saw a figure standing stiffly still in the distance. It was wearing grayish-blue colored armor with lapis blue and gold gems and was wearing a mask which covered it's head. It suddenly lurched into action and pulled out a diamond sword. Romeo responded by drawing his own diamond sword.

"Take cover, Jesse. I've got this." Romeo directed. "Come on then, fuckwit! Show me what you've got!"

The figure sprinted towards Romeo, and aimed a blow at Romeo, which Romeo ducked with ease.

"Ha! Is that all you got?" Romeo taunted.

The figure pulled out a greenish-grey potion and threw it down, creating a cloud of dust, which it disappeared into. Romeo coughed from the dust.

"Ugh! Oh man, oh jeez!" Romeo coughed. "Okay, where are you?"

The figure suddenly launched into the air behind Romeo.

"Look out!" Jesse exclaimed.

Romeo dodged just in time, which he would not have been able to do had Jesse not shouted. Romeo and the figure got into a brawl, which ended in Romeo kicking the figure down with his foot. Romeo walked over, grabbed the figure and pulled him into a headlock.

"All right, let's see who our visitor is!" Romeo said dramatically before ripping off the mask. What Jesse saw, almost made him faint on the spot.

It was Ivor, except he had a blank expression on his face. Looking closely, he saw that his eyes were glowing blood red. A loud static sound threatened to burst Jesse's eardrums.

"What the fuck?" Romeo exclaimed, letting go of Ivor and plugging his ears. "Something's off about this guy. His eyes!"

Jesse knew straight away what was going on with Ivor. He was being mind-controlled. But it was impossible, Jesse took down PAMA years ago.

Ivor spun around, grabbed Romeo and pulled him into a vice-like headlock of his own. While Ivor's back was turned, Jesse saw a blinking device on the back of his head. Yep, he was chipped all right.

"Ack! Jesse! GET THIS…ACK…. GUY OFF ME!" Romeo demanded, choking.

"THROW ME A WATER BUCKET!" Jesse ordered.

"WHAT?!"

"JUST DO IT!" Jesse snapped.

Romeo struggled against Ivor's grip, and pulled out a bucket, immediately dropping it Jesse dove in and grabbed it. An expression of fear etched on Ivor's face upon seeing the bucket, but it was too late. Jesse tipped the water in the bucket on the ground next to Ivor, grabbed Ivor's face and shoved it into the water. Ivor let Romeo go as he started seizing up with electricity, the chip on the back of his head popping off.

"Ah, thanks!" Romeo gasped. "I need… I need a moment… need to catch my breath!"

Ivor lay still for a moment, before eventually opening his eyes. They were back to normal.

"J-Jesse?" Ivor questioned, slowly getting to his feet.

"Ivor." Jesse greeted.

"Yes, it is I, your friend Ivor." Ivor confirmed. "We've got a massive problem on our hands."

"What happened?" Jesse asked. "And what's going on with you?"

"Let me explain." Ivor said. "It all started when I fell through a portal into some sort of strange world. Everything was all white… Master Shadow's domain. He claimed he was a ninja master, a practitioner of the _Shadow Arts._ At first, I wanted nothing to do with him, he was a very suspicious character. But eventually, after a lot of uncomfortable eye contact, he asked me, ME, to be his pupil! I was confused at first, because he didn't exactly present his credentials or curriculum, but I was always open to learning! I'm a student of life after all, so I said YES! Before I knew it, I was punching trees, cleaning floors… all as part of my so-called _training._ At first, it seemed pointless! But after I had punched a forest's worth of trees and cleaned miles and miles of floor, two things became clear. Sometimes, doing menial tasks can be an amazing way to learn martial arts. And sometimes, strange old men just like tricking people into doing their housework."

"Okay, okay. Can we cut the bullshit and get straight to the answer? I don't care about how you became a ninja. Right now, what I'm worried about is what the hell is going on up on the surface right now?" Romeo snapped.

Ivor glared at Romeo, before continuing.

"Just as me and Harper were about to return from our vacation, mobs began to teleport in. We were confused at first, only Endermen were known to teleport. But when we saw their glowing red eyes, that's when we realized what was going on."

Ivor turned around.

"PAMA's been reactivated."

"WHAT?!" Jesse screamed.

"Yes, and this time, we're already too late. He's already begun spreading to other worlds." Ivor relayed.

"Wait a second." Romeo said. "What is this _PAMA_ you speak of?"

"It's was a redstone machine that we fought years ago that was powered by the Redstone Heart." Jesse explained. "Basically, it mind-controlled everyone into being mindless slaves for it."

"Precisely." Ivor agreed. "And that mind-control was the worst thing that's ever happened to me."

Jesse suddenly had a flashback.

* * *

"_Now, there's something I'd like to reveal. Since you won't be seeing Beacontown ever again, I might as well as give you a hint on the true nature of why I built this place." Xara revealed. "You see, sitting in your filthy treasure room, is a rather valuable Redstone Heart of mine, which I need to finish off my big project, but with you in the picture, things could get complicated. So I built this place as a distraction, to play with you for a bit, before I remove you from the equation completely."_

_Xara got right into Jesse's face, so that the only thing he could see was her glowing pink eyes._

"_Now, take one look at the scenery out there, because it cannot help you now."_

* * *

"Oh no, I remember before Xara banished me to the prison, she said something about stealing the Redstone Heart back." Jesse remembered, growing more nervous by the second. "She wanted me out of the way because she was planning to reactivate PAMA, and enslave the whole world using that machine!"

That made Romeo furious. His head began to shake, before he finally exploded.

"DAMN HER, I DON'T FUCKING BELIEVE THIS!" Romeo roared. "Come on, Jesse! Now we've really got to hurry!"

"One more thing." Ivor added. "It probably has something to do with this Xara person, but PAMA's now got strong superpowers, which is how he got me down here."

"I… I've heard enough!" Romeo said. "Thanks."

"Okay, Ivor. I want you to go back to Fred's Keep. Tell them that I sent you and tell them about PAMA. Explain to them that it is not safe to go back up." Jesse instructed. "We'll be back there once we find what we're looking for."

"Please hurry, there's no telling how long it'll be before PAMA finds out I'm no longer under his control! Get whatever it is you're looking for and do it soon." Ivor pleaded. "SMOKE BOMB!"

Ivor took out another smoke bomb and threw it down, disappearing within the smoke. Jesse ran in and coughed. He turned around and saw Ivor a short distance away. He gasped upon seeing that Jesse noticed him.

"You saw nothing." Ivor said, backflipping out of sight.

Romeo shook his head.

"You have some weird friends, Jesse." Romeo commented.

"Thanks?"

Romeo picked up a minecart.

"That yellow-skinned maniac has forced our hand. We need to get to the cabin, now! Before Xara can cause any more damage." Romeo instructed. "Help me fix these minecarts."

After fixing the minecarts. Jesse and Romeo were set on course for Romeoburg.

* * *

Author's Notes: The fact that PAMA returns in this story gave me the idea to name the story 'Redstone Nightmares'

Like it? Review. Don't like it, look up another story.

More to follow.


	11. Romeoburg

Chapter 10 – Romeoburg

* * *

(Minecraft: Story Mode and its characters belong to Telltale Games, not me.)

* * *

Jesse and Romeo reached Romeoburg, where they immediately noticed a sound of what appeared to be hundreds of people fighting.

"That's odd." Romeo remarked.

"HALT! You there! What business have you?" A female voice called out. Looking up, Jesse saw two figures. They had white mohawks, shabby looking armor and had black paint under their eyes. The figure on the left was light skinned while the figure on the right was dark skinned.

"Let me handle this." Romeo whispered. "Val, Soup. It's me, Romeo. Let us in."

"Romeo?" Dark-skin gasped.

"Yes, it's me." Romeo answered. "I may not be an Admin anymore, but it's still one hundred percent me. Now let us in."

"Sorry, but I'm afraid we can't do that." Light-skin apologized.

"What?"

"Yeah, Soup is right." Dark-skin agreed. "Do you even realize how deadly you've made your challenge? We've lost almost all of our population attempting to get through it."

"Well… I-"

"Exactly, and right now, we're doing you two a favor by keeping you out. Really, it's for your own good." Val said.

"Yeah, it's nothin' more than a death trap. The worst kind of trap." Soup agreed.

"Which is why we vowed to keep everyone out. Even our own leader who we can see is no longer an Admin." Val said.

"Fine. Yes, it's near impossible. It contains six hundred stages." Romeo said.

"What!?" Val, Soup and Jesse gasped together.

"Don't panic, I know a way that will skip us to the six hundredth stage." Romeo explained.

Jesse sighed in relief.

"Okay. I've been super patient with you two, but I am done. If you don't open this gate, we'll scoop up some of that dirt and use it to climb over that wall!" Romeo snapped.

Val widened her eyes, before conceding.

"Open the gate!" Val ordered.

"On it!" Soup said, running out of sight.

"No, Soup! The gate! Yeah, the real gate!" Val corrected.

"Right, on it!" responded Soup, switching directions.

The gate in-front of Jesse and Romeo opened up. They walked in, and saw a llama rolling on its back. It stepped up and sniffed Jesse out.

"I don't remember this place being a wasteland." Romeo commented.

"Yeah, uh, having a town where everyone enters a mysterious challenge room then never comes out will do that." Soup responded.

"Suppose that might affect population levels a little bit." Romeo agreed.

"We still don't feel good about permitting you into the challenge room, especially unarmed and without your powers. BUT, we'll trade you some gear if you can build something to scare off FUTURE unwanted visitors." Val said.

"You know, like a snowman! Or a huge flower!" Soup suggested.

Romeo sighed.

"Okay, if it'll get you two to let us in there, I'll build something scary." Romeo conceded, taking the material from Val.

"Just, make something that will help us strike fear into the hearts of all who would see it. Keep people off our backs."

"Something to give us a little me-time." Soup added.

When Romeo finished building, Jesse could agree that it looked scary, but he didn't know exactly what it was supposed to look like.

"Oh, wow. That will give me nightmares. Haha. Well done." Val remarked.

"Yes, wonderfully horrifying." Soup agreed.

Val and Soup led Jesse and Romeo towards a few stands, each of which contained shabby looking armor.

"This is what we managed to salvage from the goofballs…uh, I mean… residents, who tried entering." Soup explained.

"Well, a little protection is better than none." Romeo said, taking off his prison jacket, revealing a white tank top underneath.

Jesse and Romeo eventually chose their choices for the armor. Val held out a bunch of items. Jesse picked up an iron pickaxe, while Romeo decided not to take anything, holding out his diamond sword that he stole from the Ironguard Detention Facility. They walked towards the challenge room.

"Aww, good luck." Soup said.

"Oh, you poor doomed souls." Val pitied.

Jesse and Romeo descended some stairs into what appeared to be arena.

"Okay, the cabin is past that door there. To open it, we just need to beat stage six hundred." Romeo said. "First, let me walk you through on how to get the challenge started."

They reached the bottom of the stairs, and saw three levers, each accompanied with either blue, red or purple wool behind it.

"To switch it on, we need to flip these three levers in a window of three seconds." Romeo explained. "I'll take Xara's lever. Jesse, you take Fred and my lever."

Romeo flipped Xara's switch. Jesse responded by flipping Romeo's switch before racing to Fred's switch and flipping it.

"Here we go." Jesse said.

"_Welcome challengers; Xara, Fred, and… me! Romeo!_" Romeo's voice echoed around the arena, coming from a placement of jukeboxes. It had the same hint of arrogance, pompousness and confidence that Xara's voice had.

"I originally built this for myself, Fred and Xara." Romeo explained.

"_Are you ready for the most thrilling, death-defying, heart-pounding challenge, you've ever experienced?" _Romeo's voice asked, with a chuckle. "_Stage One; Begin!_"

A machine popped up out of the ground, creating a set of magma golems and magma cubes using pistons.

"Okay, I'm going to climb up there, activate the manual override, and skip us to stage six hundred." Romeo said. "What you need to do, is just to use the pressure plates to turn those things into cobblestone."

"Got it!" Jesse responded, nodding.

"Then let's go!"

Jesse engaged the mobs while Romeo maneuvered himself on top of the machine, being careful to not burn his feet by the magma blocks on it.

"_Ooh, wow. What a showdown, folks!_" Romeo's pre-recorded voice commented as Jesse used the pressure plates to cover the mobs in water, turning them into cobblestone. "_We're having the time of our lives, aren't we?_"

Jesse managed to defeat the golem, using the pickaxe to mine it up.

"_Congratulations, challengers! Stage one, of six hundred! Haha, complete!_" Romeo's voice congratulated, with a laugh very similar to Xara's.

Eventually, Romeo reached the three levers on top of the machine. He started flipping the levers in a certain pattern.

"Got it!" Romeo called out.

"_STAGE TWO, ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN-_" Romeo's voice shortened out.

"Get ready, Jesse." Romeo said, jumping down and rejoining Jesse. "This is going to get super dangerous."

"_Now, prepare yourselves for, ahem. STAGE SIX HUNDRED!_" Romeo's voice announced as a giant flaming hand reached out of the opening pit in-front of them. A giant magma golem pulled itself out of the pit. Jesse and Romeo backed away.

"Okay, these challenges are far more dangerous than they appeared to be when I still had my powers." Romeo admitted.

"_I see your smiles._" Romeo's voice said. "_Now, now, I'm not a monster. There is a crafting table nearby._"

Romeo's pre-recorded voice burst into maniacal laughter.

"Ignore my egotistical past self and focus on removing the arms of that golem." Romeo instructed. "Once you do that. I'll use the TNT I picked up from the Warden."

Jesse spent the next two minutes luring the golem near the pressure plates, where Jesse turned its arms into stone and mined them down with his pickaxe. Once Jesse did that to both arms, his pickaxe broke. Romeo stepped in, holding TNT.

"HEY, IDIOT! GOT A PRESENT FOR YOU!" Romeo bellowed, placing the TNT down and igniting it. While the TNT was flashing, Romeo picked it up and tossed it at the golem. "CATCH!"

Romeo turned around, grabbed Jesse and dived as the TNT exploded, causing the entire floor around the golem to cave in, which sank into a bed of water.

"_Oh! You've done it! Oh, yes! The power of our friendship prevails!_" Romeo's voice celebrated as the golem slowly sank underneath the water, the glow in its eyes flicking off. Fireworks shot up around the arena.

"Now, let's get to that cabin." Romeo said, gesturing for Jesse to follow.

They descended some stairs, before finding themselves in another giant room, with a cottage in the middle of it. Looking up, Jesse saw that it was covered in its own layer of bedrock. There were lamps shining everywhere, keeping the place alive.

"Wow, this is the first place down here that looks… alive." Jesse commented.

"That was my doing, Jesse." Romeo said. "I was here briefly after Fred's death before fighting Xara, and I wanted this place to be preserved, so when I left, I sealed it off with my own layer of bedrock, alongside some lamps so that nothing down here dies from it."

Romeo saw a tree made out of birch, and slowly approached it. There was a sign next to it that said _For Fred._

"Hello, Fred." Romeo said. "If you're listening, I want you to know that I am so sorry for everything that happened. But, I just want you to know that I am going to do whatever it takes to make things right again. And when I find her, I will make Xara pay. Oh yes, she will definitely pay."

Romeo stood up and approached Jesse.

"Come on, let's not waste any more time. Time to search the cabin."

Romeo and Jesse stepped inside the cabin. Looking around, Jesse saw banners to the right, representing Red for Romeo, Blue for Fred and Purple for Xara. Towards the other end of the cabin, Jesse saw three beds, colored Red, Blue and Purple. To the right, next to the window, Jesse saw a portrait of Fred. The rest of the house had items strewn about, and it looked pretty messy. Jesse picked up a book that was on the ground next to him.

"Remember, I used to read all the time? Now I barely do." Jesse said, thinking back to before the Endercon Building Competition and the Wither-Storm. He replaced the book back into the bookshelf.

"Things change." Romeo said.

"Yeah." Jesse agreed.

Jesse saw a practice dummy.

"It's like the one we used to have, back at the treehouse. Until someone, Petra, broke it."

Romeo chuckled.

"The place is a mess. What happened here?" Jesse asked.

"Oh, yeah. When Fred died, I was in a rush to find something I had left here. Now, just like with Fred's house, the gauntlet that will help us defeat Xara isn't going to be out in the open. If I know Fred, he would have hidden it too well. Far too well. Try looking in places that a regular burglar wouldn't even consider digging through." Romeo said.

"Got it." Jesse nodded.

Jesse spent the next five minutes going through the mess within the cabin, tidying the place up, until the place looked practically spotless. But he didn't find any trace of the gauntlet. Jesse tried almost every place he could think of. That was, until he saw a hole in the floor in one corner of the cabin. Inside it, was an unmarked book. Jesse picked it up and opened it. What he saw, made him call for Romeo's attention immediately.

"Romeo, you're going to want to read this." Jesse said, handing the book to Romeo. Romeo took it and read it aloud.

"_Dear Xara, if you're reading this, I'm already gone. I hid this in the one place I knew you would look for it. Fitting the key to ending all this would be here, where it all started._" Romeo read. "_This is the key to defeating Romeo._"

Jesse took a look and saw that it next said _#POTATO451_.

"#POTATO451" Romeo read.

"That's it?" Jesse asked, confused.

"_Take this word of passage and use it at the primary terminal. You can take away his power and end this._" Romeo continued reading. "_I still have hope for Romeo. He just wanted to stay together, more than anything. I know that's why he's doing this. Maybe I'm being foolish, but I need to know for sure before taking this step. Though I guess if you're here, I got my answer. Maybe someday we'll be together again. Your friend, always… Fred._"

Romeo snapped the book shut, before throwing the book across the cabin in rage. It bounced off the glass window on the entrance side and fell open onto the floor. Romeo started full on crying.

"Look, at, this!" Romeo sobbed. "Our lives, gone!"

If Jesse thought Xara was terrible when she sent him down to her prison, it was nothing to the hatred he felt for her now. That she would actually betray her friends out of the blue without any shred of remorse at all? That she would actually bedrock over the world and leave everyone in darkness? That she would actually rebuild PAMA to enslave everyone in her new world? This was one twisted woman. Jesse made up his mind then and there. No matter what it took, he was going to help Romeo stop Xara. They, now were the world's last hope.

"Mark my words, Jesse. When I find Xara, I'm going to reduce her to absolute nothing. She deserves it, for what she did to me and Fred." Romeo said, his voice dangerously quiet. "She ruined our lives."

"Yeah, she's a monster. Through and through." Jesse agreed.

Jesse picked up the book that Romeo threw and took a look through it's pages. Some of them got crinkled from the impact of the ground, but Jesse didn't find anything of interest. It wasn't until the very last page of the book, that Jesse saw something interesting. It was more of Fred's handwriting.

_If the worst happens, I've left something else underneath the slab where you found this book. Do not use it unless absolutely necessary. Good luck Xara._

"Romeo, look at this." Jesse said.

Romeo took the book and looked at the phrase, before immediately turning his attention to the slab inside the hole where they found the book. He pulled out a spare pickaxe from a chest inside the cabin and used it to mine it up. Once the slab was removed, Jesse took a look inside. Inside, lay a white colored gauntlet. Romeo spotted the white gauntlet and gasped in recognition.

"Oh, I don't believe it!" Romeo exclaimed. "WE FOUND IT! This is the gauntlet I was talking about."

Jesse was very hesitant to touch it. A gauntlet was what got him into this mess in the first place.

"How exactly is this going to help us fight PAMA?" Jesse questioned.

"Jesse, I helped you escape the prison. I showed you all the horrible things that Xara did." Romeo said. "Now, it's time for you to uphold your end of the deal and help me out."

"How, exactly?" Jesse questioned.

"Tell me, Jesse? Have you ever heard of the phrase; _Fight fire with fire?_" Romeo asked.

"What do you mean?"

"This gauntlet, is the source of our Admin powers." Romeo revealed. "This very item is how we got our powers."

"Whoa!" Jesse exclaimed.

Romeo nodded.

"Jesse, I helped you escape that facility." Romeo reminded. "And we had a deal. I get you out of the facility, you help me defeat Xara."

Romeo turned around.

"And to do that, we're going to need to get through two layers of bedrock. And we both know that there is no way to get through bedrock normally. And here is our dilemma. We not only need to get to the surface, but we also need to fight a omnipotent power-mad redstonist. That can be extremely deadly if you aren't well prepared."

Romeo pulled out the gauntlet.

"After careful consideration, I have made my choice. Jesse, not only am I going to put this on and get my powers back, but I also request that you join me in doing so?"

"Wait, wait, wait? You want me to become an Admin too?" Jesse questioned, shaking.

"That's exactly what I'm asking." Romeo said. "That way, if I go down, you can still put things right. What I also need to mention to you, is that when an Admin uses their powers, they leave behind a residue. It doesn't last for long, but it lasts long enough for an Admin to track you. From what I understand, Xara never learned how to track an Admin's residue. Even if she did, she would've most likely forgotten how by now. So I think we should be good using the gauntlet here."

"Well, here goes nothing."

Romeo put the gauntlet on. Nothing happened.

"Is something supposed to ha-" Jesse began, only to be cut off by the gauntlet suddenly glowing white. A burst of bright light caused Jesse to close his eyes. It lasted for about 30 seconds until it finally faded. Jesse opened his eyes, and almost took a step back in shock at what he saw.

Romeo now looked exactly like the form Jesse saw on the poster back in the Oasis. This time, Jesse was able to look at Romeo's Admin Form in person. Romeo's form was vastly different in comparison to Xara. Xara's form included bright colors that made Jesse's eyes want to bleed, Romeo's form was much more pleasant to look at.

His hair was no longer faded, but back to the bright firetruck red that Jesse saw on the poster. His skin was dark grey, and he was wearing a black outfit with glowing red lines outlining the seams. His sclera was now red, with glowing yellow irises. Romeo chuckled, his voice now displaying the same robotic undertone that Xara's voice had.

"I'm going to test something. Get down." Romeo instructed.

He teleported outside, floating around. Xara did not appear, which seemed to be what Romeo was hoping for.

"Exactly what I was hoping for." Romeo said. He pulled the gauntlet back out.

"Now, I'm not forcing this on you. You can deny if you want, but before you make any decisions, slow down, and think this through." Romeo said, pulling the gauntlet back. "Gaining and removing Admin Powers are not as simple as you think, Jesse. My method of removing an Admin's powers requires the use of a special enchanting book, one which I spent many years working on. Fred's method was a Golden Gauntlet, which #POTATO451 was guarding. Unfortunately, Xara already used that to take my powers away. The catch is, each time you create an item capable of taking an Admin's powers, it can only be used once, and I do not have the patience nor the capability to create another book."

"Well, how did you create it then, if it's that impossible?" Jesse asked. "What happened to the first one you created?"

"I lost it when Xara first took my powers away. It took me many years of dedication to create the enchanting book that allows an Admin's Power to be taken away, and I was studying from ancient books that came with the Admin Gauntlet." Romeo explained. "Books that have since disappeared after Fred took them."

Jesse was lost, what should he do?

"Are you absolutely sure this is what you want, Jesse?" Romeo questioned, his voice down to a whisper. "Remember, you can still back out if you wish, but if you put on that Gauntlet, it'll be a lifetime commitment. There will be no going back."

"I need to protect Beacontown." Jesse reasoned.

"I know, Jesse." Romeo answered. "But is this how you want to go about doing it? I just don't want to see you sink to Xara's level."

Jesse's entire body was shaking. This was the biggest decision of his life. If he followed through with Romeo's offer, the future of his world would lie in his and Romeo's hands. Jesse wasn't sure if he was ready to take that responsibility. What if he did end up in Xara's position?

But if he declined, he could not see any other way to defeat Xara. And he really didn't want to let her win. What should he do? Should he put the Gauntlet on, or should he decline and hand it back to Romeo?

Jesse did not know how long he stood there, pondering, but eventually he closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths.

"Well?" Romeo asked.

Eventually, Jesse came to a decision. He opened his eyes and started directly into Romeo's glowing yellow eyes.

"I'll do it." Jesse decided.

Romeo held out the Admin Gauntlet and Jesse grabbed it. He took another deep breath and put the gauntlet on his right hand before he could have the chance to get cold feet.

Jesse felt the gauntlet stick to his hand, and it began to glow white. Here it goes.

As a burst of white light filled the cabin again, Jesse felt as though something was shocking his body. It began to seize up, and Jesse felt something run up his arm, and all throughout his body. Eventually, the seizing stopped, and Jesse fell to the ground, to see that his body felt a lot stronger than he had ever felt before. A green hue was illuminating the ground. Jesse looked down and saw that his outfit was glowing green. Romeo was looking at him with approval. He clapped his hands, spawning a portrait.

"Here, you should take a look. This is what you look like."

Jesse saw that his skin was now dark grey, very similar to Romeo's except a slight touch lighter. His sclera was an electric green, and his irises were white. His outfit was black, and glowing green. It was similar to Romeo's form, only the gems on his torso seemed to resemble the gems on his Dragonsbane armor, and they were green. The only part of him that remained the same was his hair, which was still dark brown.

As Jesse stared at the portrait, the reality of Romeo's offer, along with his warnings raced through his mind. He was an Admin now, and it looks like his newfound powers were here to stay.

* * *

Author's Notes: And, that concludes this chapter.

This part, I was planning right from the very beginning. What I _**forgot**_ to tell you was that this story was also intended to be a rewrite of sorts of my first MCSM fanfiction, _Admin Order_, which focused solely on **Admin!Jesse**. But I wasn't fully satisfied with how it turned out, and when I saw a few images on tumblr of Romeo and Xara swapping roles, that gave me the idea to write this.

I also had a draft of a story very similar to how Fred: Into the Multiverse played out, where some things happened, and Romeo ended up joining Jesse and his group in the adventure through the Portal Hallway, but I scrapped that idea, as it didn't really work how I wanted it to.

If you check out my tumblr, you will see some renders of how my version of Admin Jesse looks.

Like it? Review. Don't like it, look up another chapter.

More to follow.


	12. Redstone Nightmares

Chapter 11 – Redstone Nightmares

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(Minecraft: Story Mode and its characters belong to Telltale Games, not me.)

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Jesse eventually decided that he can worry about the repercussions of becoming an Admin later, right now, he had a world to save and a computer to stop.

Romeo deposited the gauntlet back where they found it, before covering it up again with a slab block. He clapped his hands, and both of them felt themselves spinning before reappearing on the bridge outside Fred's Keep.

"Ugh! Why does teleporting have to be so disorienting?" Jesse groaned.

"You get used to it." Romeo said. "Now, let's go introduce Admin Jesse and reintroduce Admin Romeo."

But they had a problem. As they walked up into Fred's Keep, they saw that there was literally no one around. Not a soul in sight.

"Where is everybody?" Romeo asked.

Jesse and Romeo scrambled around, checking various houses, but there was nobody around. It was as if they had just all mysteriously vanished.

Jesse was just about to walk into Fred's house when they heard distant footsteps. Looking around, Jesse saw a figure running across the bridge towards them.

"Hold on, we've got somebody." Romeo said.

The figure arrived. It was Jack, and he looked like he'd seen better days. His hair was a mess, and both his face and clothes had dirt on them, and he was out of breath. But he was alive.

"Jack!" Jesse exclaimed. "Man am I glad to see you're okay."

"You thought a little fall would get the better of the Velvet Tornado? Pfft, please." Jack scoffed, he blinked and suddenly noticed Jesse's Admin appearance. "Jesse? Please tell me you didn't…"

Jack trailed off, before fixing a glare at Jesse.

"Oh no." Romeo whispered, knowing what was about to come.

"Why? Why would you become the very thing that we're trying to defeat!?" Jack exclaimed. "I knew it, I knew we couldn't trust him, and yet you let him win you over? We were meant to defeat the Admin, not join her!"

Romeo teleported between Jesse and Jack, sensing a fight happening.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down!" Romeo said, looking at Jack. "Calm down."

Jack just glared at Romeo. Jesse sighed.

"Look, I know you might not be too happy with my choice, but we've got an even bigger problem." Jesse explained.

"Ugh, what!?" Jack snapped.

Jesse opened his mouth to reply but was cut short by the sound of hundreds of mobs teleporting in, ranging from Zombies to Skeletons to Spiders. They all had glowing blood red eyes, which meant that they were under the control of PAMA.

"That!" Jesse pointed out. "That's our problem."

Jesse grabbed Jack and yanked him into Fred's House. Romeo clapped his hands, spawning more of the dark golems that Jesse saw back at the prison, only these had red lines, not purple. Romeo followed them into Fred's House as the golems began to engage the mobs.

"Okay, I have a feeling that's the reason why nobody is around. It seems that PAMA got to them first." Romeo said. "Damn!"

"Can someone explain what is going on?" Jack asked.

"Xara used the Redstone Heart to reactivate PAMA and is trying to use it to make everything _useful_ again." Jesse explained, spitting out useful as though it was some kind of poison.

"Wait, PAMA! I remember reading something in Lukas' book about you fighting some machine named PAMA during one of your adventures." Jack said.

"Yes, the very same." Jesse responded. "This time, it's worse. Much worse. He's got Xara on his side, which means he doesn't even have to haul people to his chipping platform. He can just teleport people there."

"Speaking of teleporting. We need to get to the surface." Romeo pointed out. "Jesse, you know the surface much more than I do. Focus on teleporting the three of us up there and clap your hands. Now."

Jesse scrambled through various locations on the surface, before eventually choosing to teleport to the temple of the Old Order of the Stone. He clapped his hands, and he felt himself spinning. Eventually, the swirl of colors stopped, and he saw himself standing outside the temple. Looking up, he saw the full moon high in the night sky, which Jesse was glad to see was no longer glitching.

"Where are we?" Romeo asked. "Where did you take us to."

"The Old Order's temple." Jesse explained. "It was the first place I thought of."

"Beacontown shouldn't be too far off then." Jack said.

Romeo was staring at the temple with admiration.

"Place is a bit more run down than I expected, but even then, I can tell that this is definitely a place that Soren would have come up with." Romeo said. "I'd definitely use this time to explore the temple, if the world wasn't being controlled by a giant redstone nightmare built by a power-mad redstonist."

Jesse felt the lack of mobs a little bit unnerving. At night, no matter where you were, there was always the stray creeper, spider, skeleton or zombie. But there was not a single mob to be found. Jesse knew why of course, PAMA had chipped them all.

A distant high-pitched beeping sound got their attention.

"Inside, now." Jesse ordered. They rushed inside the temple, where they entered the map room. Jesse looked out towards the direction of Beacontown and saw the very thing that he never thought he would see again. PAMA's giant green computer screen made out of green redstone lamps.

As Romeo and Jack approached Jesse. PAMA's computer screen began to smoke, and a giant dot was visible in the center. Eventually, it flickered into a face.

"_**Outside threat remains.**_" PAMA said in its monotone computer voice.

"That thing is more terrifying than I thought." Romeo commented.

"For once, I agree." Jack agreed.

"Shhh!" Jesse snapped.

"_**Drone sequencing re-initiated. Trace subroutine re-initiated. Admin residue tracking initiated.**_"

"Oh shit, that thing can track Admin residue?" Romeo exclaimed in horror.

"_**Foreign Admin residue detected. Admin power suppression field engaged.**_"

Jesse felt something run through his body, which caused him to suddenly feel a sharp spike of pain. The glowing gems within his Admin outfit dimmed. Jesse tried to use his powers to do something, only to feel another sharp spike of pain and glitch out in a whole magnitude of colors.

Romeo held out his arm and shook his head, convincing Jesse to stop. Jesse saw PAMA's face flash into a happy face.

"_**Hello, Jesse! Hello, Romeo!**_"

"Crud!" Jesse whispered.

* * *

Author's Notes: Okay, the length of this chapter is pathetic, I know. But sometimes you develop this little thing called Writer's Block.

Like it? Review. Don't like it, look up another story.

More to follow.


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